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A SKETCH 



LIFE AND TIME8 



SPEECHES 



JOSEPH E. BROWN 



HERBERT FIELDER. 



SPRINGFIELD, MASS.: 

PRESS OF SPRINGFIELD PRINTING COMPANY, 
1883. 



Copyright, 1883, 



> I 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 
1 



Introduction, ........ 

Chapter I. My Contemporaries. 1857, 

" II. Governor Joseph E. Brown's Early Life, . 

" III. Government of Georgia under Joseph E. Brown 
" TV. State Geologist and Chemist, 
" V. Secession of Cotton Growing States and Organi- 

zation of the Confederacy, . 
" VI, First Year in the Field, .... 

" VII. Defence of Georgia by State Forces, 
" VIII. Government of Georgia in E-elation to the War 
" IX. Governor Brown and the Confederate Military, 
" X. Correspondence of Governor Brown and James 

A. Seddon, Secretary of War, 18 G4, . 
" XL Correspondence of President Davis and Gov- 
ernor Brown upon Conscription, 
" XII. Correspondence of Governor Brown and A. Ful- 

larton, British Consul at Savannah, 
" XIII. Reconstruction of Georgia, .... 

" XIV. Administration of Governor Bullock, 
" XV. A Summary of Governor Brown's Character, 
" XVI. Supplement Prepared for the Publishers, Bring- 
ing the Narrative of Events to September, 

1883, 

Appendix: 

Speeches of Senator Brown : The Mexican War Pensions, 593. — The Edu- 
cational Fund, 605. — The Indian Question, 615. — The Funding Bill, 
625. — Reply to Senator Mahone of Virginia, 630. — A Free Ballot and a 
Fair Count, 642.— The Silver Bill, 660.— The Mormon Question, 678.— 
The Chinese Bill, 690.— The TarifE Commission Bill, 704.— Civil Ser- 
vice Reform, 714. — Rights of the Citizens of the late Confederate 
States to Proceeds of Cotton Seized by U. S. Government, 725. — The 
Tarilf and the Internal Revenue System, 742. — Unconstitutionality of 
the Test Oath, 756.— Our Country, 772. 



25 

91 

108 

158 

170 

202 
243 

256 
275 

318 

355 

398 
410 
459 

487 



495 



Errata and Explanations. 



Chapter I, page 25, " My Contemporaries/' was written 
by the author at various times during his professional 
life, and contains his opinions and estimates of the men 
at the time he wrote. 

Page 4, 11th line, after Nathaniel Green Foster, read 
" the Madison District." 

Page 53, 10th line, "James I. Gresham" should be 
" John J. Gresham." 

Page 52, 16th line, " Barney " should be " Burney." 

Page 53, 4th line from bottom, " H. S. M' Kay " should 
be " H. K. McCay." 

Page 115, 11th line, "correction" should be "convic- 
tion." 

Page 156, 20th line, the year " 1875 " should be " 1785." 

Page 283, 7th line from bottom, after words "habeas 
corpus," insert " generally throughout the realm." 

Page 432, 3d line from bottom, " John Pope " should 
be "Meade." 

Page 456, 11th line from bottom, " Garrett " should be 
« Garnett." 



INTRODUCTION. 



DESCRIPTION OF GEORGIA IN 1880. 

This State, in extent of area, geological formatien, and 
diversity of mineral resources; in abundance and variety 
of timber ; in water and water-power ; diversity and fer- 
tility of soil ; capabilities of immense and varied vegetable 
productions ; in climate, adapted to the comfort and health 
of a multitudinous population; in adaptation to manu- 
factures, to rail, river, canal, and ocean carriage and 
transportation ; its facilities for the growth as well as 
maintenance of a numerous, powerful, great, and happy 
population, — in everything except the present possession 
of enough of people and money, and aside from all polit- 
ical considerations, is an empire within itself. 

If she were a separate body, standing on two pillars of 
land and water, the Atlantic coast and the " Land of 
Flowers " indicative of her varied capabilities, we could 
easily point out, to the enquiring beholder, the peculiar 
facilities of the belts that form the surface from base to 
summit. 

At the broad bottom, we have her level low lands, 
where the accumulated columns of her rivers move slowly 
to the Gulf and Ocean, and where their tributaries are 
skirted with green hammocks and dark loam, the region 
dotted with open ponds, and those of deposit and thick 
growth, the main picture being the green carpet, with 
its floral decorations, perfumed by fragrant odors. This 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

level belt has its inexhaustible wealth of timber, abounds 
with self-sustaining cattle, sheep and hogs. The people 
are plain, frugally clad, honest, hospitable and brave, 
producing support with but little labor and exertion. It 
would be difficult to draw a statistical account of the 
capabilities of this belt alone, if it were only settled 
by a population sufficiently dense, permeated by rail-, 
roads, and spotted over with diversified manufactories — 
its cotton, wool and silk ; its cane and melons ; its grapes 
and cereals ; its peas, roots, timber, and oils ; its animals 
of burden and food; its vegetable and medicinal produc- 
tions, and the magnificence of its floral beauty. 

Higher up, the broad belt occupied, before their eman- 
cipation, in great part by slaves, and their owners and 
managers, and since by a population which in some dis- 
tricts is composed of a majority of colored free people. 
This is the region that, from its early settlement, was in 
great part devoted to the growth of cotton ; and from 
which, annually, has been brought to market so much of 
that leading staple which has swelled the aggregate 
exportable value of American products. But, withal, a 
vast region not surpassed in the aggregate by any of 
equal extent in natural fertility and adaptation to the 
majority of agricultural and horticultural products that 
are needed for the necessary use, the comfort, and even 
luxury of mankind. 

Higher still, we have the belt of middle Georgia, a gen- 
eral term that describes a section in some parts level, in 
others broken and undulating, vast in extent, diversified 
in soil, and of capabilities that are immense. Here are 
numerous springs, rills, rivulets, branches, and creeks. 
The rivers flow rapidly over granite and pebbly beds, 
leaping from higher to lower surface, as if to supply 



INTRODUCTIOK 3 

motive power to machinery prior to man's invention of 
the use of condensed steam. Here are the rocks and 
gravel, the loam and the clay. Here the cereals impart 
to the picture a more golden hue, as they mingle with 
the cotton, the roots, the fruits, and vines. This is a land 
highly favored by nature, and to it have adhered a pop- 
ulation of former slaves, slaveholders, and non-slave- 
holders, a people worthy of this heaven-favored country, 
in every respect except in numbers. 

Still higher, w© have the broad belt of upper Georgia 
stretching from the east over the freestone to the west 
over the limestone, resembling the middle belt in many 
places, in surface, water, and geological formations, with a 
still deeper golden hue, from preponderance of cereal 
crops. And not very unlike to it in the character, 
habits, and modes of life of the people, but with greatly 
diminished mixture of the colored race. This vast re- 
gion is more variegated as to fertile and barren lands, but 
far exceeds all the rest in abundance and variety of the 
mines imbedded beneath its surface. 

Thus stands the grand old State, arable, watered, tim- 
bered, peopled in every district, with immense capabilities 
in the production of nearly all that man needs of food, 
raiment, medicine, laden along her surface with vines 
and fruits, with her skirts and graceful drapery trimmed 
with every variety of flowers, from the gorgeous magno- 
lia to the bridal-wreath spirea. She stands in magnifi- 
cence peerless among the nations ; but in modesty, as if 
a maiden decked and attired for the altar, before their 
assembled court. Her wealth is of the mountain chain, 
all studded with stones and precious metals. By her 
peaks and slopes she makes her obeisance — so genial and 
inviting is she to all the civilized world. She bows to 



4 INTRODUCTIOK 

the east to catch the light as it comes on Aurora's 
beams; and to the west to bid adieu to the King of Day 
and receive the kiss of his last retiring ray ; to the North 
Star, and her twinkling wintery comrades ; and to the 
Queen of Night, amid her virgin throng of southern 
stars ; lofty in her height, magnificent in her propor- 
tions, she catches the dews from the clouds ; she bows 
lowly in commiseration and sympathy with laboring man, 
and sheds her tears to cool his parching fields ; these she 
mingles with the floods distilled from the clouds, and the 
fountains she sends forth from every undulation of her 
bosom, and propels them, in silvery columns, along their 
winding ways, over cascades and through deep valleys, 
with converging channels and concentrating waves, to 
unite with the great waters of Gulf and Ocean. 

AREA. 

The State extends from thirty-one and a half to thirty- 
five degrees of north latitude, having an average length 
north and south of three hundred miles, and breadth 
east and west of about two hundred miles. It contains 
68,000 square miles, being about 37,120,000 acres of 
land. 

POPULATION. 

By the census of 1870 there were 638,926 white, and 
595,192 colored, making the aggregate 1,184,109 people. 
By the census of 1880 the whites are 816,906 the colored 
725,133, making the aggregate 1,542,180. 

SUBDIVISIONS. 

There are one hundred and thirty-eight counties, vary- 
ing in size, shape, population, productions, and wealth. 
These are subdivided into militia districts, designed orig- 



INTEODUCTIOK 5 

inally for the convenience of military organization, 
which have also been adopted as jurisdictions for courts 
of justices of the peace. 

The judicial division of the State is into circuits, form- 
ing jurisdictions for the Superior Courts, the highest tri- 
bunal of original civil and criminal jurisdiction in the 
State, of which there are twenty-one, each having a judge 
and solicitor elective by the Legislature. 

There are ten political districts, the people of each of 
which elect a representative in Congress. And forty- 
four senatorial districts, each electing a senator in the 
State Legislature, the representatives being elected 
by counties. 

BOUNDARY. 

Commencing on the south-east at Tiger island, at the 
mouth of St Mary's river, the state has an ocean 
front on the Atlantic north to Tybee island at the mouth 
of the Savannah river, along the eastern border of the coun- 
ties of Camden, Glynn, Mcintosh, Liberty, Bryan and 
Chatham. Thence that river and her eastern tributary, 
flowing south-east, divide this state from South Carolina, 
to the south line of North Carolina along the eastern 
border of the counties of Chatham, Effingham, Burke, Rich- 
mond, Columbia, Lincoln, Elbert, Hart, Franklin, Haber- 
sham, and Rabun, to the north-east corner. Thence a 
dry line west, along the northern border of the counties 
of Rabun, Towns, and part of Fannin, adjoining North 
Carolina, and thence along the balance of Fannin and 
the counties of Murray, Whitfield, Catoosa, Walker and 
Dade adjoining Tennessee, to the north-west corner near 
the Tennessee river ; thence a dry line south along the 
western border of the counties of Dade, Walker, Chat- 



6 INTEODUCTION. 

tooga, Floyd, Polk, Haralson, Carroll^ Heard and Troup, 
to the west bank of the Chattahoochee river ; thence south 
along that bank and the west border of the counties of 
Harris, Muscogee, Chattahoochee, Stewart, Quitman, Clay, 
Early, and a part of Decatur, all adjoining Alabama ; and 
thence the balance of said county adjoining Florida to 
the south-west corner at the confluence of the Flint with 
the Chattahoochee river. Thence east a dry line along 
the southern border of the counties of Decatur, Thomas, 
Brooks, Loundes, Echols and Clynch to the St. Mary's 
river ; thence along the irregular course of that stream on 
the counties of Charlton and Camden, to the Atlantic 
ocean, — all adjoining Florida. 

RIYERS. 

The Savannah is navigable for steamers from the At- 
lantic to Augusta ; and far above that city for flat boats. 
The Chattahoochee, from its termination in the Appalachi- 
cola in Florida to the rapids at the city of Columbus. 
The Altamaha, from the Atlantic to its beginning at the 
confluence of Ocmulgee and Oconee : the former, to 
Hawkinsville, and the latter, to the bridge of the Central 
Railroad in Washington. The St, Mary's, Satilla, and 
Ogeechee, for less distances and smaller vessels,"as are the 
Ohoopee and Ocholochnee. 

The streams flowing northward across the Tennessee 
line, the Hiwassee, Notley, Tocoa and Chickamauga riv- 
ers, are not navigable in this State. The Oostenaula is 
navigable for small boats about one hundred miles above 
the city of Rome, the point of its confluence with the 
Eowah, forming the Coosa, which, in its flow to Alabama, 
is navigable about forty miles in this State. 

Beside those mentioned, the State is permeated in all 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

parts by smaller rivers, large and small creeks and their 
tributary branches and brooks, affording pure water in 
abundance for all the uses of man and the lower animals. 
Among the rivers not already named, there are in the 
upper part of the State among the mountains, Tallulah, 
Chestatee, Ellijay, Coosawattee and Connasauga : south 
of the mountains in upper Georgia, Broad and Little riv- 
ers tributary to the Savannah and Talapoosa flowing into 
Alabama. In middle Georgia, Ulcofauhatchee, called Al- 
cova, South and Yellow rivers tributary to Ocmulgee, 
Appalachee and Little rivers tributary to Oconee, and, in 
the southern part of the State, Little AUapaha, Suwa- 
nee, and Canouchee rivers. 

WATER POWER. 

These streams, passing from higher to lower lands, 
abound with falls, many of them beautiful, and a few that 
are of striking grandeur and awe. The water powers 
furnished are multitudinous, and diversified by the heights 
and by the differences in volume of water — varying from 
one horse to twenty'' thousand horse power. 

ALTITUDE AND SURFACE. 

The average elevation of the State above the level of 
the sea is about 650 feet. The eastern portion of north 
Georgia is about 1,500 feet, having mountain chains 3,000 
feet, with peaks nearly 5,000 feet high. The western 
part of the same belt is about 750 feet, with mountain 
chains 2,000 feet high, some of which are fertile, and are 
generally interspersed with extensive and fertile, as well 
as beautiful valleys, while the eastern is more generally 
hilly, with fewer valleys. 

The belt of middle Georgia above the points of river 



8 INTKODUCTION. 

navigation is generally from 500 to 1,000 feet, the aver- 
age altitude being about 750 feet. This belt has no 
mountains, except perhaps the majestic Stone Mountain 
towering up in the midst of a comparatively level section. 
It ha^ no extended plains or valleys, but is generally un- 
dulating, and in some places quite broken and hilly. The 
lower belt, being by far the largest, has an altitude of 
from 200 to 300 feet. It is generally level, though in 
some places exceedingly uneven and broken by steep, 
low hills and narrow valleys and ravines. The streams 
flow more slowly, have scarcely any high lands and hills 
skirting them, as in the up country, and more extensive 
swamps and low marshes. And the face of the country, 
instead of being varied as in the northern part by moun- 
tains, is interspersed often with small ponds, some of them 
open and clear, others surrounded by dense undergrowth : 
and by beautiful lakes, many of them transparent. 

The State has three general slopes subdivided by many 
small ones. The first and major one is the Atlantic, 
south-east of the Appalachian chain of mountains, and the 
Chattahoochee ridges dividing it north-east to south-west, 
above the middle. The next in size, the Gulf slope, south 
of that chain and west of the Ridges. The other, the 
Tennessee slope, north of those mountains. All are indi- 
cated by the rise and flow of the water courses, and are 
marked by a diversity of climate, soil, timber, and mineral 
deposits. 

CLIMATE. 

The southern half of the State is marked by equanimity : 
mildness in winter, and regular warm days and nights in 
summer. The northern, by greater diversity and change 
of temperature ; the winters are colder and have more 
sudden and extreme changes from mild to severe cold. 



INTEODUCTIOK 9 

The summer is delightful for the cool and bracing atmos- 
phere at night, and, in the higher portions, freedom from 
oppressive heat by day. The temperature varies much 
also between the mountains and valleys. The whole 
northern belt abounds in springs so cold that water needs 
no ice to adapt it to use for drinking. 

SOIL, PRODUCTIONS AND HEALTH. 

The tide-water lands on the south-east are devoted to 
rice, and furnish most of the product of that grain which 
the State sends to market. It is, however, grown mostly 
for home consumption, to a considerable extent on the 
low lands of the interior. 

The vast area of lower Georgia, generally sparse of 
population, produces corn, oats, barley, rye, rice (wet or 
dry culture), peas, ground peas, turnips, potatoes, sugar- 
cane, cotton, tobacco, vegetables, fruits, berries, and mel- 
ons. The soil is light, soft and of easy cultivation. Most 
of the habitations are of sparse dimensions, made of rough 
timber from adjacent forests, and built at but trifling 
expense. The people away from the streams, swamps, 
marshes, and hammocks are as free from disease as those 
of any part of the continent ; but in such localities they 
are more or less exposed to malarial diseases. The native 
grasses afford permanent pasturage to sustain well in sum- 
mer, but poorly in winter, cattle and sheep. Hence beef 
and wool enter largely into home consumption and furnish 
profitable commerce to many of the people. 

The middle belt of rolling and sometimes hilly surface 
is of red, gray, and in some places mulatto soil, all with 
clay foundation ; and, except sugar-cane, is productive of 
all the crops mentioned in the low country, and is well 
adapted also to wheat. In fact, nearly all of the market 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

crops of the continent will grow here, though all are not 
cultivated. 

The population is more dense than in lower Georgia, 
though sparse here compared with many other States of 
the Union. The dwellings, not universally, but generally, 
are more commodious and comfortable. The white peo- 
ple are healthful, active, industrious, and generally intelli- 
gent. There is a larger population of colored people than 
in the sparsely settled portions of lower Georgia. 

The same description of peoples applies to the wealthier 
and more densely populated neighborhoods of the low 
coimtry ; and to the northern belt, where similar crops 
are grown with less proportion of cotton and colored peo- 
ple, as to the major part of it, with the addition of grasses, 
including clover for hay; and where the soil is better 
adapted for the growth of tobacco, not extensively grown 
in any part of the state. 

TIMBER. 

The extensive southern belt abounds with pine, which 
is of the finest quality and inexhaustible quantity. The 
lakes, many of the ponds, and the water courses are often 
skirted with live oak, and other varieties of oak, and with 
evergreen trees in great variety These tracts, not ex- 
tensive in width, are called hammocks ; and where the 
land is so low as to retain the water amid the trees and 
undergrowth they are called swamps, some of which are 
dense and extensive. 

The timber of middle and many parts of upper Georgia 
was extensively destroyed for farming purposes ; but still 
in many places the supply is abundant. The native for- 
ests were set with pine in many places mixed with oak in 
every variety, dogwood, hickory, poplar, chestnut, and 



INTRODUCTION. H 

every variety of gum, cedar, spruce pine, walnut, ash, 
elm, black-jack, and sycamore ; and in many localities the 
pine and other growths mentioned are wanting. The 
timber of Georgia seems to be an inexhaustible source of 
wealth. 

METALS AND MINERALS. 

Granite and limestone are so extensive as to be inex- 
haustible in different parts of the State, while they are 
not found in others. The variety is extensive of rocks 
and stones, in color, hardness, durability and uses to which 
they may be applied, to be found in different localities, 
including marble of several grades and kinds. In some 
localities are inexhaustible marl beds, and in others quar- 
ries of slate of the finest quality. Gold is extensively dis- 
tributed across the upper part of the State, north-east and 
south-west ; and valuable mines of copper have been dis- 
covered in many places in the same region. There are 
numerous other mineral deposits of great value and im- 
portance, as well as mineral and medicinal waters in limit- 
less variety and abundant quantity. 

But the two deposits of value, and apparently the most 
profuse from the Creator, are iron and coal. It may be 
said that, so far as relates to soil, climate, water, adapta- 
tion to the growth of all crops, timber, and mineral de- 
posits, no part of the globe is better fitted than the 
State of Georgia, if shut out from all the world, to main- 
tain a great population for an indefinite period, provided 
there were in operation manufactories sufficient to con- 
vert all her raw material into commodities for use. 

Upon these natural advantages a reasonable degree of 
improvement has already been made, placing this State 
far in advance of some, but still leaving her much to ac- 
complish hereafter in order to be abreast with many other 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

countries and States of the Union. Among those improve- 
ments we refer to our 

SYSTEM OF RAILROADS. 

The following railroads are in operation : 

From Savannah to Isle of Hope, 9 miles ; thence to Mont- 
gomery, 4 miles. 

From Savannah to Bainbridge 237 miles; on this line, 
branch to Live Oak, Florida, by Atlantic and Gulf 
Eoad, in this state, 30 miles; branch from Thomasville 
by South Georgia and Florida Railroad to Albany, 60 
miles. 

From Savannah to Atlanta, the Central Railroad, via Ma- 
con, 295 miles; on this line, branch from Millen to 
Augusta, 53 miles ; from Tennille to Sandersville, 3 
miles ; from Gordon to Eatonton, 39 miles : Barnes- 
ville to Thomaston, 16 miles ; Griffin to Carroll ton, 60 
miles. 

From Macon to Eufaula, on west bank of Chattahoochee, 
in Alabama, the Southwestern Railroad, 140 miles; 
on this line, from Fort Valley to Perry, 11 miles; 
Fort Valley to Columbus, 71 miles; Smithville via 
Albany to Arlington, 60 miles; Cuthbert to Fort 
Gaines, 22 miles. 

From Brunswick to Macon, Macon and Brunswick Rail- 
road, 186 miles; on this line, branch from Eastman 
to Ocmulgee River, Cochran to Hawkinsville 10 miles. 

From Brunswick to Albany, Brunswick and Albany Rail- 
road, 172 miles. 

From Augusta to Atlanta, Georgia Railroad, 171 miles; 
on this line, branches Barnett to Washington, 18 
miles ; Union Point to Athens, 39 miles ; Carnac to 
Macon, Macon and Augusta Railroad, 74 miles. 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

From Columbus to Kingston, North and South Railroad, 

20 miles. 
From Atlanta to West Point, Atlanta and West Point 

Railroad, 87 miles. 
From Atlanta to Charlotte, N. C, Atlanta and Richmond 

Air Line Railroad, in this State, 100 miles ; on this 

line from Lula to Athens, North-Eastern Railroad, 

40 miles; branch from Tocoa City to Elberton, 51 

miles. 
From Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee, Western and 

Atlantic Railroad, 138 miles. 
From Marietta to Canton, narrow gauge, 24 miles. 
From Cartersville to Cedar Town, narrow gauge, 35 miles. 
From Kingston to Rome, 20 miles. 
From Dalton to Bristol, East Tennessee Railroad, in this 

State, 18 miles. 
From Dalton to Selma, Alabama, via Rome in this State, 

57 miles ; by Chattanooga and Alabama Railroad, 

Chattanooga to Selma, in this State, 25 miles. 
The aggregate of these roads is 2,440 miles. The main 
lines mentioned connect with other lines beyond the State 
extending to all parts of the country, affording to the 
people markets within practicable distances from their 
homes and places of business and industry. 

TELEGRAPH LINES 

Are in operation along the lines of most of the rail- 
roads above described. 

CITIES AND TOWNS. 

Since the commencement and completion of the rail- 
roads of the State, the number, prosperity and growth of 
towns and cities have greatly increased. These are 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

marts of commerce, sites of churches of different orders ; 
common and high schools for both races and sexes, and 
some of them have flourishing colleges. They are gen- 
erally healthful, and the people happy and prosperous. 
Many of them are centers of intelligence, refinement, 
moral and social worth, as well as Christianity. 

The principal cities are Savannah, situate on the 
Savannah river, about twenty miles from its mouth, with 
a population of 33,248. 

Augusta, at the head of steamboat navigation on the 
same stream, with a population of 22,301. 

Macon, on the Ocmulgee river, in the central part of 
the State, with a population of 14,000 within the city, 
and 11,000 in suburban villages and settlements, making 
25,000. 

Columbus, at head of steamboat navigation on Chatta- 
hoochee river. Population within city 10,137, and 
suburban villages 8,000: total 18,137. Atlanta, made 
site of State Capital in 1868, 37,825 : Athens on Oconee 
river, north-east part of State, site of University of 
Georgia, 8,052. Rome at confluence of Etowah and 
Oostenaula rivers. 

Brunswick on the Atlantic coast, 2,900, Darien, 1,544. 
On Western and Atlantic railroad, Marietta, 2,229 ; Carters- 
ville, 2,037 ; Dalton, 2,516. On Air Line railroad, Gaines- 
ville, 2,450. On Georgia railroad, Washington, 2,203 ; 
Greensboro', 1,600; Madison, 2,500; Covington, 1,470; 
Conyers, 1,400; Social Circle, 800; Stone Mountain, 
1,800. On Macon and Augusta railroad, Milledgeville, 
3,998 ; Sparta, 900. On Central railroad, Sandersville, 
1,322; Eatonton, 1,371; Waynesboro, 1,015; Forsyth, 
2,000; Barnesville, 1,983; GHffln, 4,500; Thomaston, 
900. On Macon and Brunswick railroad, Hawkinsville, 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

2,100 ; Eastman, on Albany and Gulf railroad, 500; Jessup, 
GOO; Blackshear, 778; Valdosta 1,516; Quitman, 1,525; 
Thomasville, 2,556 ; Bainbridge at terminus on Flint river, 
1,444 ; on Southwestern and branches. Fort valley, 1,278 ; 
Perry, 709 ; Oglethorpe, 442 ; Americus, 4,800 ; Albany, 
3,000; Dawson, 1,684; Cuthbert, 2,115; Fort Gaines, 
1,100. On Atlanta and West Point railroad, Fairburn, 
563 ; Newnan, 3,000 ; La Grange, 2,375 ; West Point, 
1,972; Camilla on South Georgia and Florida railroad.700 ; 
Carrollton at terminus of North Alabama railroad, 956 ; 
Cedar Town at terminus of Cherokee Narrow Gauge, 
1,635 ; Cavespring on Rome and Selma railroad, 850 ; 
Talbotton, 1,008 ; Oxford, site of Emory college, 1,000. 

There are numerous other railroad towns, county sites 
and villages, generally smaller than those mentioned. 

MANUFACTORIES. 

The manufacture of cotton, the principal market prod- 
uct, converting the raw material into fabrics, was begun 
in the vicinity of Athens, utilizing the water power of 
the Oconee river, upwards of fifty years ago. The success- 
ful experiments in Clark county were followed by similar 
enterprises in Green, Richmond, Morgan, Newton, Bald- 
win, Cobb, Hancock, Putnam, Troup, Chattanooga, Upson, 
Warren, Chatham, Bibb, Decatur, Early, Harris, Muscogee ; 
the most extensive are at Augusta, Columbus, and Ros- 
well in Cobb county. They increased in number and 
extent, and now there are in the State thirty-seven cot- 
ton and fourteen wool factories. 

The progress of iron manufacture has been more 
rapid, having begun at a much later period. There are 
twenty-eight manufactories and foundries in North-west- 
ern Georgia, some of them very extensive, and in some 



16 INTRODUCTIOK 

instances supplied by coke of the best quality, produced 
from the native coal. There are seven paper factories, 
flour and corn mills in endless variety in every part 
of the State, and a large number of mills for pounding 
rocks that contain the precious metal. Numerous dis- 
tilleries of liquors and of turpentine, and several extensive 
manufactories of commercial manures ; others for locomo- 
tives and cars ; numerous establishments for making wag- 
ons, carriages, agricultural implements, boots, shoes, and 
building material ; doors, windows, sash, blinds, brick and 
roofing ; with mills in great abundance for cutting lumber 
from the forest. At Columbus the Chattahoochee river is 
used to move the immense machinery. At Augusta, the 
water of the Savannah river is utilized by a canal nine 
miles long, which is about one hundred and fifty feet wide, 
with a depth of eleven feet of water ; and through this, 
the flat boats for which the river is navigable one hundred 
miles above Augusta avoid the shoals above, and find easy 
access to the city. 

KELIGION" AND CHURCHES. 

The Protestant Christians are by far the most numer- 
ous professors of religion, but are divided into sects or 
denominations, the principal and most numerous of which 
are the Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian, and each 
of these have subdivisions. 

The Baptists have a membership of about 112,000 
whites and 98,000 colored, with 2,600 church organiza- 
tions and edifices. They have an organization co-exten- 
sive with the State called a convention, and one hundred 
and twenty smaller ecclesiastical divisions of advisory 
bodies called associations. 

'J he Methodists have a membership of about 100,000 



INTRODUCTION 17 

whites and 70,000 colored. The principal division of 
which, the Methodist Episcopal Church South, has two 
jurisdictions called Annual Conferences, which are di- 
vided into districts, circuits, missions and stations. Other 
Methodist organizations have similar subordinate juris- 
dictions. 

The Presbyterians have a membership of about 9,000 
whites and 1,000 blacks. They have a State jurisdiction 
called a synod, which is subdivided into presbyteries. 

The colored memberships are generally in separate 
organizations from the whites of the same sects, a dis- 
tinction which is still more strictly preserved in all the 
schools in the State, and is preferred by both races. 

There are a few churches of Congregationalists, Lu- 
therans, Unitarians, and Universalists. 

The Christian Church has about fifty church organ- 
izations and edifices, with upwards of 5,000 member- 
ship. 

The Protestant Episcopal Church has a membership of 
about 4,500, with about thirty churches. The aggregate 
Christian membership of the State is about 400,000 souls. 

The Israelites have numerous local organizations that 
are without edifices or stated worship, but have six syna- 
gogues and a membership of about 5,000. 

The styles of the church edifices vary much, and conform 
to the situations and circumstances of the people where 
they are located. There are comparatively few elegant 
buildings in the country, away from the towns and cities. 
Many of them are neat and comfortable, but in many 
places they are small, of cheap and rude structure, and 
wanting in comfort as well as ornament ; and such is the 
case with many in the cities, towns and villages. But a 
large proportion of those in the cities and towns are 

2 



18 INTKODUCTIOK 

highly creditable, and many of them handsome. Ther^ 
are a few that for this country are splendid edifices. 

Pulpit eloquence and church music are largely culti- 
vated, and in many places both have attained a high 
standard of excellence. 

CEMETERIES. 

In nothing has the civilization of the State shown 
more evidence of advancement than the improvements 
that have been made in latter years of the resting-places 
of the dead. The primitive custom of burying in the 
church-yards in town and country, is in many places 
adhered to, but generally with increased care of the 
graves. But, in most of the towns and in all the cities, 
separate places are set apart for public cemeteries. Many 
of these, by the natural growth and transplanted ever- 
green trees, shrubbery, and flowers, with the variegated 
structures over and around the dead, are made lovely 
and beautiful. At the wealthy and populous cities of 
Augusta, Savannah, Macon, Atlanta, Columbus, Rome, 
Athens, they are strikingly beautiful, while the cemeteries 
in many of the larger towns are attractive ornaments. 
The Confederate and State soldiers who died under cir- 
cumstances that enabled their friends to inter them, or in 
the numerous hospitals located in the State, are distribu- 
ted in the cemeteries and church-yards and private grave- 
yards all over the State. Those buried on and near 
battle-fields have generally been collected in Confederate 
cemeteries at Resaca, Marietta and Atlanta. 

The Federal soldiers who died in our prisons and hospi- 
tals, and on the battle fields in the State, who were not 
carried to other States, have generally been collected 
in national cemeteries at Andersonville and Marietta. 



INTRODUCTION". 19 

PUBLIC CHARITY. 

In many of the counties of the interior of the State, 
provision is made by the erection of poor-houses, estab- 
lishment of poor-farms, or by disbursing the funds col- 
lected by taxation through the county officers to support 
the few really indigent people. The number found in 
actual want and unable to subsist without public aid is 
small in every part of the State. 

The old cities, particularly Savannah, have charitable 
institutions, many of which are under the auspices of 
voluntary associations. In many places the Protestant 
as well as the Catholic churches have voluntary and 
relief societies. Suffering from destitution and want, 
and aside from disease, is of rare occurrence in town or 
county. 

There are three classes of unfortunates for which the 
State has made liberal appropriations, and established 
near Milledgeville an asylum for the treatment and care 
of lunatics, at Macon an academy for the education of 
the blind, and at Cave Spring an institution for the edu- 
cation of deaf mutes, all under successful operation for 
many years, and dispensing, in large measure, the bless- 
ings designed by the State. 

Destitute orphans have not shared the State's liberal- 
ity, but those of the Catholic people have long been pro- 
vided for by an asylum located at Savannah. The two 
Georgia conferences of Methodists have each established 
an orphans' home without reference to the religious faith 
of their parents. The north Georgia, near Decatur, and 
the south Georgia conference, near Macon. Both are doing 
well, but as yet are of limited capacity and accommoda- 
tions. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 

There are upward of 160,000 pupils, large and small, 
tauo-ht weekly in Sunday-schools, which are almost 
entirely under the care and control of the different 
churches. They come from all grades and classes of peo- 
ple, and represent every variety of wealth and poverty, 
intelligence and ignorance among the growing generation, 
upon all of whom the beneficial effects, in mind and 
morals, and often in religion, are perceived. Sabbath- 
school system is on the increase. The methods of popu- 
lar education, aside from that of Sunday-schools, have 
undergone important changes within the last thirty years. 
There is a much larger proportion of people taught let- 
ters. The proportion of collegiate over academic instruc- 
tion in males and females has greatly increased. The 
poor-school system, which by taxation and otherwise dis- 
pensed limited benefits to children classified as poor, and 
which classification rendered the system to ah extent 
unpopular, has for the last twelve years been superseded 
by a system of common schools open to all children of 
given ages, and of both races, without regard to pecuniary 
circumstances. Under the former system the main part 
of the education of children and youths was paid for by 
parents and guardians. And such is, to a great extent, 
still true. 

The State constitution, which requires separate schools 
for the white and colored races, limits the system to the 
elementary branches of an English education. The State's 
appropriation of $300,000 annually, alone is sufficient to 
keep the children taught, from 180,000 to 190,000, in the 
schools but a short period of the year, and necessarily 
in many instances under very inferior and often unfaith- 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

ful instructors. Still there is some degree of elementary 
progress toward the training of mind flowing from the 
system. And its benefits are enlarged in every locality 
where local appropriations by comities or cities are made, 
and in proportion to the extent of such supplement of 
the Slate school fund. 

Still the system generally over the State does not meet 
the demands of popular education, and schools of all 
grades are maintained by the people as formerly. All 
the towns and villages maintain good schools for the 
whites, and many of them also for the blacks, the expenses 
of which are paid by the patrons and employers. But 
there are fewer country schools than formerly ; and a 
large proportion of those seeking even academic education 
who reside on farms, distant from the towns, are required 
to incur the expense of boarding in addition to tuition. 

In addition to the numerous academies, male and 
female and mixed, and of the respective races separate 
from each other, there are numerous chartered colleges, 
most of them in successful operation. Georgia was the 
first State in the world to charter and put in operation a 
college for the graduation of females. The Southern 
female college was chartered at Macon in 1836, and after- 
wards changed to Wesleyan female college. This exam- 
ple has been followed by all the Statee, and by numerous 
like charters and institutions established under them in 
this State. But this, the oldest, is the most extensive in 
appointments for varied instruction, and has much the 
largest patronage of any similar school in the state. But 
many of the others have ample faculty, buildings, and 
arrangements for high grade of education, and have large 
patronage. 

The Georgia female college, and Madison female col- 



22 INTEODUCTIOK 

lege are located at Madison ; the Southern female college 
and La Grange female college, at La Grange ; the South- 
ern Masonic female college, at Covington ; Furlow Masonic 
female college, at Americus ; Andrew female college, at 
Cuthbert ; Young female college, at Thomasville ; Monroe 
female college, at Forsyth ; Houston female college at 
Perry; Lucy Cobb female college at Athens ; College 
Temple (female college), at Newnan ; Columbus female 
college, at Columbus ; Le Vert female college, at Talbot- 
ton ; West Point female college, at West Point ; Conyers 
female college, at Conyers ; Gainesville female college, at 
Gainesville ; Cherokee Baptist female college, and Rome 
female college, at Rome ; Dalton female college, at Dal- 
ton ; Griffin female college, at Griffin ; Georgia Baptist 
seminary, at Gainesville. Gordon institute is a flour- 
ishing college for males and females located at Barnes- 
ville. 

The University of Georgia, formerly Franklin college, 
the oldest male college in the state, located at Athens ; 
Mercer university, located first at Penfield, Green county, 
and afterwards at Macon ; Oxford, located at Oxford, 
Newton county ; Bowden college, located at Bowden, 
Carroll county ; and Pio-Nino, located near Macon, are 
the five male colleges for the white race. The Atlanta 
university, located at Atlanta, is a flourishing college for 
the males and females of the colored race. The Georgia 
medical college at Augusta, the Atlanta medical college at 
Atlanta, and the Savannah medical college at Savannah 
are popular institutions for the graduation of physicians, , 
The Lumpkin law school, connected with the university 
of Georgia for the graduation of attorneys-at-law. 

There are in addition to these, several commercial and 
business colleges, and branch colleges of the University 



INTRODUCTION, 23 

of Georgia at Dahlonega, Milledgeville, Thomasville and 
Cuthbert. 

PRINTING AND PUBLICATIONS. 

There are fourteen daily newspapers. Two in each of 
the cities of Savannah, Augusta, Macon, Columbus, 
Griffin and Atlanta ; one in Rome, and one in Albany ; 
and one hundred and twenty weekly papers, varying 
largely in size as well as patronage, distributed over the 
state, in eighty-five of the larger towns, cities, and villages. 
They are in matter and aims diversified and miscellane- 
ous, most of them more or less political ; some devoted 
mainly to religion, some to agriculture, others, literary. 
But all devoted to progress and improvement, and as a 
system constitute one of the most efficient, extensive, 
and cheap methods of popular education. Most of them 
have job offices connected with them, which make print- 
ing, aside from publication, a lucrative business in many 
places. There are publishing houses in Savannah, Macon, 
and Atlanta, and in each a medical journal. 

SOCIETIES. 

The agriculturists have a State agricultural society 
composed of representatives of the numerous county 
societies, holding semi-annual conventions in different 
sections of the State. There is also a State horticultural 
society, and a central organization composed of represen- 
tatives of local societies of the Patrons of Husbandry, 
called the State Grange. The ritual of this order is secret. 
There are numerous local literary societies in addition to 
the Georgia Historical Society located at Savannah. 

The social and benevolent orders are numerous, having 
local societies and state organizations, whose existence 



24 INTEODUCTIOK 

and aims are public, but having secret rituals and exclu- 
sive meetings. Principal among them are Masons, Odd 
Fellows, Good Templars, Sons of Malta, Knights of Honor, 
and Knights of Pythias, having numerous local lodges or 
societies, representatives of which constitute the Grand 
or State Lodges. There are also State associations of the 
press, of teachers, and of physicians, having annual meet- 
ings. The North Georgia Fair and Stock Association is 
located at Atlanta, and a State fair is held annually, under 
the auspices of the State agricultural society, alternately 
at Macon and Atlanta. Besides there are many fair 
grounds well improved and extensively patronized under 
societies and associations in every part of the State, loca- 
ted at the central towns. There is also a State horticul- 
tural society. 



r- 



CHAPTER I. 

My Contemporaries. — 1857. 

Georgia, the state of my nativity and ancestry, is great 
in physical resources of wealth, and in capabilities of de- 
velopment and improvement in mind and morals; and 
therefore, in the means of rearing and maintaining a popu- 
lation, great in number and power ; and deserves more 
prominence and distinction than she has, for the high 
grade of true merit she has already reached in her public 
ofiicers, and men of leading minds in science, literature, 
the church, and learned professions of law and physic. 
The deplorable want of tangible and convenient historic 
description and record is a crying evil at this period when 
I, one of her humble citizens, reach the period of observa- 
tion and meditation upon men and things around me. 
Hence, I begin, in this crude method, to lay up in store 
my own conclusions of the men among whom, and of the 
times in which, I live. 

The literature of this, as of every past age, must in 
great part be the product of private fortune, prompted 
and carried on at the behest of individual ambition and 
by individual enterprise. Literary persons, who have no 
exchequer except what the world returns for their valua- 
ble contributions, live and die poor as to all that money 
can purchase. The abundance of luxury and ease which 
gold can, and usually does, provide for its owners is not 
favorable to the toil and labor that a pure and exalted 
literature requires. The hope of their comforts may stimu- 
late the pursuit, but their possession supplants the desire 



26 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

for purely intellectual pleasiires. I have, therefore, rea- 
son to rejoice in the possession of at least one of the pre- 
requisites to literary success — a want of surplus money — 
but prize as much a sufficient worldly estate to maintain 
my personal independence, which is essential to truth and 
fairness. 

The grade and power of mind, as well as the passions, 
emotions, tastes and sensibilities of authors, in a great 
degree, prompt, mould and modify the literature of the 
times in which they write, causing it to brighten and 
sparkle under the magic touch of genius, or to descend 
into barrenness under dull and venal thinkers and writers. 
It softens by the recurring emotions of charity and philan- 
thropy, and becomes caustic and pungent when prompted 
or guided by malice, envy, misanthropy, or ambition dis- 
appointed from any cause. 

I have lived thirty years — long enough to have high 
hopes, but fortunately not enough to poison my pen by 
the asperities consequent on the envy of my few disap- 
pointments — yet, nevertheless, have witnessed far more 
•of selfishness among men of education and cultivation, 
not prompted by poverty or want, than I formerly sup- 
posed could possibly exist among the men who, are leaders 
in the churches, in the professions, in social and political 
circles and among those holding public offices. 

Some of the contemporaries of whom I write have 
already died ; some are old, have performed life's public 
task and folded the drapery of its honors and rewards 
around them and retired to private life to await the sum- 
mons for exit from time ; some are in the midst of full 
harvest labor of what they have sown in youth and early 
manhood ; others are laboring in the early field — the vir- 
gin soil of life — with minds and hearts full-strung to the 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 27 

work before them. It is of my seniors in age and merit 
that I write, and will doubtless omit many of equal merit 
with those who are mentioned by name. Georgia is great 
in area as well as men, and I do not profess to know all 
who are distinguished or deserve to be. 

There is probably no standard more difficult to be well 
understood, much less to be fully and satisfactorily de- 
scribed, than that of man's greatness. It has been writ- 
ten and spoken of, represented in marble and on canvas. 
It has deluged the reading world wath words, figures and 
tropes, with triumphs and tragedies, until we are left in 
uncertainty and doubt, not to say ignorance, of what it is 
or has been in any age of the world. We have liberty to 
erect ideal statures of strength, power and beauty, and to 
compare men, alive and dead, with those idealities. We 
may describe actions we regard as grand and momentous, 
and pronounce judgment of greatness upon the actors and 
authors; but others, viewing the transactions with different 
understanding, and with different shades of the light of 
truth, may regard the actions unimportant, and the 
achievements of men, made notorious by them, the results 
of chance and of accidental circumstances. 

No matter what endowments any given man may have 
had by nature, or what education and training he may 
undergo, no meed of greatness will ever be awarded to 
him by mankind until he is placed in such position, and 
at such period, and under such emergencies as cause great 
events to transpire, or great results to flow from his ac- 
tions, either in reality or in the opinion of those who are 
interested in or affected by those events or results. It 
often transpires that greatness is attributed to a leader or 
a projector on one side when, in truth, success is the result 
of weakness and want of capacity on the part of the op- 



28 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

posing parties or forces. The reputation for greatness 
often arises to individuals for the success of plans and 
movements which result from and are necessary sequences 
of appliances and surroundings ; and not unfrequently the 
thinking powers, knowledge, and skill of subalterns are 
attributed to him who fortunately is the head and leader 
at the time. 

On the other hand, men in place and power are often 
censured for failures which result from circumstances be- 
yond the control of any one man or mind. They are con- 
demned for not doing what is not in the power of man to 
do with the aid and support at command. Events and 
circumstances have often summoned men who held power 
and responsible positions to the discharge of duties for 
which they were not qualified ; and men of great capaci- 
ties have lived and died without distinction for want of 
position and power and great emergencies to call forth 
their efforts. 

But one man ever achieved what Alexander did ; and 
but one man ever held at the outset of his career such 
power in the face of only such opposition as Philip left 
to his son. There was never but one Napoleon Bonaparte, 
but also never but one Republican France struggling 
against the domination of the monarchies of Europe. 
There was never but one Lord Nelson, and never but one 
opportunity to make another that could have immortal- 
ized genius as the commander of the British navies was 
immortalized. England may subsist a thousand years and 
rear a thousand men every way his equal in military skill 
and power before she will have the opportunity to glorify 
another as Wellington was glorified. Virginia may propa- 
gate her crop of men of the blood of Randolph and Lee, 
and of Jefferson and Washington, for centuries to come, 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 29 

and never present another Father of his Country, or 
Author of The Declaration of Independence. 

The three great statesmen coming from the East, the 
West and the South — all of whom have now gone to their 
long homes — Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, unrivalled in the 
estimate placed on them by the American people, may 
have now living many equals in all the essential elements 
of true greatness who have no field in which to operate, 
and no emergency of circumstances to call them out and 
to develop their powers of thought and of speech ; who, 
when they die, will pass quietly into unmarked graves 
and leave no biographers to portray their merits. 

Greece had but one Demosthenes ; but, in all her length- 
ened and unrivalled career of glory in the arts of peace 
and war, she perhaps had no period or situation that could 
have so distinguished another. Rome had but one Cicero, 
and but one Golden Age to gild his fame to the cycles 
of hoary Time. 

The splendors of Raphael and x\ngelo dazzle the world 
in their own and following ages ; but it is probable that 
at no stage of civilization would the taste and passion of 
Italy, or any other country, for the art that so immortal- 
ized them, have crowned even their equals, if they had 
been found, with wreaths of glory so bright and so en- 
during. ■ 

The lessons taught in profane and sacred history, in the 
display of notably vicious men, are full of instruction on 
human meanness and depravity. Historic development 
of forbidding circumstances, and with worldly power and 
prominence to render crime illustrious, find their coun- 
terparts in a thousand forms in every country and age, 
without their attending importance to make notorious and 
perpetuate them. 



30 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

There was only one Job, subjected to the extreme trials 
that exhaust human patience without yielding, whose life 
is reported in the Divine Oracles; bat millions have died 
unheralded who exemplified his virtues. There was only 
one Judas who ever had the opportunity to betray the 
most priceless of all trusts — the Saviour of the world. But 
the earth has since been cursed by millions ready to be- 
tray, for no higher reward than Judas got, every truth 
and virtue that Christ came to inculcate and establish. 

It is by comparison that we may approximate the true 
standard and grade of individuals. We compare stars with 
stars in order to classify them and determine their magni- 
tude. This is to the astronomer a practical undertaking, be- 
cause the stars change not ; nor do the circumstances under 
which they are seen expand or diminish them. But men 
in different situations at the same time, and in the same 
country, and men of different countries and ages have to 
be seen in the changing light of their peculiar situations, 
and of circumstances that surround them, in order to form 
any just opinion of their capacities for great actions and 
achievements. Every country, and every age, has a his- 
tory written or a tradition received in lieu of historic rec- 
ord. Providence has so graded gifts to man, and so ap- 
portioned them among the countries and the succeeding 
ages, that no period or clime is bereft of men so endowed 
or surrounded as to have attracted the attention of their 
contemporaries; some for distinguishing virtues, and oth- 
ers for notable vices, but of acknowledged genius or 
mental power. 

America, from the time of her earliest settlements, 
through the stages of rapid progress and development, has 
shared very largely in the munificence of the Creator, 
both in mind and heart. The circumstances have been 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 31 

favorable to the production, growth, development and 
display of men of talents and of genius, though not often 
on a large scale. She has been fruitful of men of virtue and 
of vice. She has been also, in a marked degree, self-reli- 
ant; cultivated the spirit of national, political and social 
independence ; been proud and exultant, as well as con- 
scious of envy, on account of all she has achieved ; and by 
no means illiberal in adulation and praise of her men of 
merit. 

Georgia, one of the old thirteen colonies that became 
States, shared the spirit of liberty and of revolution ; 
with her sparse population and limited resource:^, contrib- 
uted to the extent of her capacities in all the labors and 
trials and dangers of the war that ended in American po- 
litical and civil independence. She was in sympathy and 
accord with all the republican ideas that gave shape and 
form and limitation to the united government of revolted 
and independent sovereign States. She felt the common 
danger, had a common treasure in the national freedom 
achieved, in the principles of political equality and of self- 
government, in all that is established and secured in the 
Federal Constitution, to the Government, to the respect- 
ive States, and to the people at large. Hence her public 
men were intensely interested and active in the move- 
ments of the General Government, as the action of Con- 
gress and the executive affected or tended to affect this 
State ; and in all the issues which grew out of national 
legislation and administration, and developed the antago- 
nistic parties in the Union. 

The public men of the period following that of the Revo- 
lution and the early administrations have passed off the 
stage of action ; and with them have been buried the is- 
sues upon measures of policy and of administration of that 



32 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

period ; and place has been given to other issues and 
other men to divide and contend about them. Success 
and defeat have chased each other in the ebbs and flows 
of the tides of passion and prejudice; of intelligence and 
ignorance ; the popularity and odium of leaders and par- 
ties have changed often in leadership, and sometimes in 
names. 

The feelings, opinions and principles of men are modi- 
fied much in and by changes of place and position ; and 
by the use of power on the one hand, and being the sub- 
jects of it on the other. Men in power and with legal au- 
thority over men love its use ; and incline to construe the 
grants of power in organic and statute law or from custom 
liberally toward its use and enlargement. Men out of 
power and its subjects, to be ruled by others, are jealous 
of it, and of the men who wield it over them; and, as a 
sequence, they favor a strict construction of the grants of 
power, and are generally found to be active and often 
clamorous for the vindication of all legal and constitu- 
tional maxims that look to the securing of popular 
rights. 

The public men of Georgia, whose lives I have had the 
opportunity to study and comprehend, have partaken of 
the common passions and frailties of men of other States 
and sections, have been patriotic and unselfish enough to 
vindicate the true principles of Republican Government; 
and selfish enough to use all the advantages resulting from 
such patriotic public service to gain and hold positions of 
power, honor and profit. Vice, selfishness and perfidy, nor 
patriotism, philanthropy and virtue, constitute the crown 
of either of the political parties of this or any past pe- 
riod of the State, but are largely distributed to both ; and 
it is this general truth that renders individual history of 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 33 

men, as connected with transpiring events, the most at- 
tractive and valuable dress for the records of a country. 

The results of personal ambition and individual antago- 
nisms in the development and career of parties in the 
Union have been reproduced on a smaller scale by the 
quest for places of honor and profit, and consequent quar- 
rels of the early political leaders of this State. The is- 
sues passed away with them ; but the seeds sown still 
yield fruit in the divisions and strife of men of ability, in- 
tegrity, and patriotism. The dead men are not here to an- 
swer for their motives, nor will the living be to reply to 
what may here be said of them ; still, the truth of history 
is of more value to mankind than the fame of any indi- 
vidual leader of the people, especially if based on fiction 
or misunderstood pretensions to greatness. 

We are at a period, already, when unbiased intelligence 
can discern the purity of purpose and devotion to the 
public good of the leaders of our local parties, and of the 
good people who espoused their respective causes. But 
time will be slow in the process, if indeed there shall ever 
be satisfactory development of faultless reas^ons for the 
extremes to which they allowed themselves to go. 

While the ambition of priests and clergymen, in extreme 
zeal for the cause of religion as understood by them and 
for the prerogatives of official power, has deluged the 
world with religious sects, that of political leaders has 
brought upon the country heartless divisions among u-ood 
people, aiming at the same general objects — good govern- 
ment and the protection of life, liberty, and property. 

It is, therefore, no violation of the facts and truths of 
our State history to say that the parties who have had 
their day upon the stage in great part were the har- 
vest of seed sown by party leaders, and were watered and 



34 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

matured by their personal aspirations, conflicts, and quar- 
rels. Our descendants will never be able to discern why 
a quarrel and duel between two public men should for 
years divide and support a feud between the people of a 
State. 

There never has been a time in this State when her 
people generally, and with rare exceptions, were not thor- 
oughly devoted to the cause of liberty and independence ; 
never a time since the leaders of the United States gov- 
ernment sprang divisions on strict and latitudinoiis con- 
struction ; and upon the question, on one side, of a strong 
central government ; on the other, strong checks on 
Federal power and assumptions of power, and a strict 
guard over the reserved rights of the State. and the peo- 
ple — in a word, since there was a Republican party 
making popular rights the leading idea, and a Federal 
party making a strong central government the para- 
mount aim — that the people of this state were not thor- 
oughly republican, independent of all local divisions and 
parties. The Nullification, the State rights, the Troup, 
the Whig parties, have ever been sound union parties on 
a proper and secure basis and well defined security to 
constitutional rights. The Republican, the Union, the 
Clark, and Democratic have always been devoted to State 
rights, as both parties understood their elementary prin- 
ciples. Their divisions on men have generally been the 
results of passion ; and those upon issues of policy often 
resulted from the bent of parties already organized to 
follow chosen men as leaders. 

While this is true, we cannot be indifferent to the 
masterly powers, the moral courage, and personal great- 
ness of the men our fathers followed and honored. The 
hearts swells with admiration as their characters are 



MY CONTEMPOKARIES.— 1857. 35 

brought to us in authenticated tradition and in sparsely 
written history. It is cause of regret that neither is full 
nor infallible. The contests between the adherents of 
Gov. John Clark and Gov. George M. Troup, growing out 
of temporary differences between people of the same aim 
and common destiny, are still in the memory of the old 
men of the State ; and the complexion of their politics 
and the status of their political alignments have often 
been produced by the prejudices engendered in those 
heated contests. They have been repeated and repro- 
duced with changes of leaders and issues, and the efflux 
of time to the present. It has never been accepted as a 
mark of a bad man that his party suffered defeat under 
his lead. Eacers have always been fruitful of excuses 
for the failure of a favorite steed, in the condition of the 
track, the mistakes of the rider, the health and keeping 
of the horse, and have been ready and anxious to risk 
the purse upon him in a second trial. So it has ever 
been with the people and the candidates of the Whig 
and Democratic parties of this State, I well remember 
the exultations of the Democrats, and mortiJ&cation of the 
Whigs, when Charles J. McDonald was elected over their 
idol and model leader, Charles Dougherty, for governor, 
and later over William C. Dawson. And when the rejoic- 
ing was at the highest tide in the Whig camp, when 
George W. Crawford defeated the noble old Roman, Mark 
A. Cooper, in 1843, and the sterling and solid Mathew 
Hall McAlister in 1845. And again, 1847, the tide of 
victory was turned to the Democrats in the triumph of 
their graceful and gifted leader, George W. Towns, over 
Gen. Duncan L. Clinch ; and m 1849 over the gifted, 
able, and accomplished Edward Young Hill. But these, 
like the contests of Gilmer and Joel Crawford, Lumpkin, 



36 MY COXTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

and Schley, resulted from the ebbs and flows of the tide 
of fortune of parties closely matched in leadership and 
in numerical strength. The beaten leaders were wounded 
and not slain ; defeated and not conquered ; not dis- 
graced or disqualified from entering the recurring con- 
flicts between the contending hosts. 

Many of the leaders and ambitious aspirants have 
changed party alignments and associations. Such changes 
have been attributed by the parties they left to resent- 
ments and disappointments, and to hopes of better suc- 
cess in the ranks of the party to which they had been 
opposed of becoming leaders and obtaining office. But 
such changes have usually taken place upon the change 
of issues, or the action of parties upon public measures, 
affording plausible and reasonable grounds for what were 
commonly denominated political somersaults. And they 
have been generally attended with warm reception by 
the party to which they acceded. Parties were never 
otherwise than so in need of as to desire and give encour- 
agement to new recruits, and to be able to see the most 
patriotic motives on their part; while the party losing the 
leader professed to find out then that he had always been 
selfish and actuated by motives of personal ambition. 

One of the most potent agencies that have tended to 
make Georgia a great State was, that, on all the issues of 
the past, the parties seeking to gain or hold power have 
been so equally divided as to keep the leaders, and the 
party press, perpetually vigilant and active. The policy 
of putting forward the ablest and best men for public 
honors was dictated by the exigencies, and the require- 
ment for men of ability and spotless reputation as stand- 
ard bearers and leaders. The espionage or guard over 
the public officers by political opponents has always been 



MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 37 

a security against their wilful or negligent dereliction 
in official duties. The parties were usually led by men 
of ability, fair fame, and ambition on either side, feeling 
that they were the custodians of the honor and reputa- 
tion of their respective organizations. The leaders were 
followed and supported by people of a common blood 
and heritage, who felt the sacred duty and trust of ever 
seconding and sustaining their leaders. The natural re- 
sult, among people who have a rich country, ease and 
exemption from toil, with leisure to devote to the matters 
of government, has been to make them intelligent in poli- 
tics, and jealous of the fame of their leaders, and to erect 
a high standard of patriotism, and of official and per- 
sonal integrity. 

One of the striking evidences of popular virtue is that, 
from my earliest recollection, the most effective weapon 
with which to strike the enemy in a party contest has 
been to assail the candidate with whatsoever imparts 
personal dishonor, dereliction of official duty, or infidelity 
to any trust, provided the charges were true. But if 
false, they were the most powerful agencies of solidifying 
the party, and making its members active, and recoiled 
terribly upon the accusing party. 

The active and controlling men are large parts of the 
sum total of the period, that must in some form, and to 
some extent, truly or erroneously, go into its history. 
But confidence falters in contemplation of the attempt to 
daguerreotype them, and to draw a picture to be seen 
after the objects have perished with the author and the 
heat and passion that are now realized shall have passed 
out of the sight and memory of men. 

The State has a brilliant array of men in office. Jfimes 
M. Wayne, associate justice of the supreme court of the 



38 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 

United States, one of the men of large brain and good 
balance of mind of the old class of men still on duty ; 
John C. Nicholl, justice of the United States district of 
Georgia, holding the circuit and district courts of the 
southern district of Georgia at Savannah ; and the court 
of the northern district of Georgia, in which the juris- 
diction of the circuit and district courts are blended, at 
Marietta. Both are men of learning and probity, and 
have the full confidence of the lawyers and people. 

Joseph Henry Lumpkin, Charles J. McDonald, and 
Henry L. Benning, judges of the supreme court of the 
State. There are several superior court judges, who are 
perhaps inferior to them only in position, William B. 
Fleming, of Savannah, William W. Holt, of Augusta ; 
the bold, impetuous, and eloquent advocate without supe- 
rior, the fearless, political speaker, and able jurist, 
Thomas W. Thomas, of Elberton ; Orville A. Bull, of La- 
Grange, who is a staid and steady, and sterling man, as 
well as cautious and well-balanced jurist; James H. 
Stark, of Griffin, who came afoot to Georgia as a school 
teacher, and worked his way up to the level of the ablest 
and clearest-headed judges of the State. He is a man of 
terseness and brevity, and without eloquence, with a 
large heart and unbounded charity, of perennial humor 
and wit, whom it is easy to love as a friend ; Robert V. 
Hardeman, of Clinton, a ruddy, bland, well-rounded, and 
somewhat ponderous man, whose body moves slowly, and 
mind in like manner, but with great certainty and relia- 
bility, and a man whose integrity is so long settled as to 
never be mentioned; Turner H. Trippe, of Cassville, who 
has been recalled to the bench in his advanced life, hav- 
ing served in that capacity many years ago ; James 
Jackson, of Athens, somewhat young, but honored and 



MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 39 

true representative of a historic family ; Joseph E. Brown, 
of Canton, Dennis Fletcher Hammond, of Newnan, Alex. 
A. Allen, of Bainbridge, Peter E. Love, of Thomasville, 
A. E. Cochran, of Brunswick, David Kiddoo, of Cuthbert, 
Abner P. Powers, of Macon, and Edmond H. Worrell, of 
Talbotton. 

David J. Bailey, of Griffin, a man of vigorous and bold 
mind, as lawyer and politician, and of tall and manly 
form, who has served with distinction in Congress, is the 
president of the State senate, and William H. Stiles who 
also represented the State in Congress with distinction, 
and the government of the United States as minister to 
Austria under President Polk, a man of elegance and 
polish, and a gifted orator, has accepted the honorable 
service of representative of Chatham county, in the Leg- 
islature, and is speaker of the House. Herchel V. John- 
son is governor, and in the full splendor of mental and 
physical manhood. 

It is noteworthy truth, that either but few men of fee- 
ble constitution, or short-lived tendencies, are called to 
high stations of honor in this State, or that such places 
tend to the promotion of longevity. All the governors 
who have been in office since John Clark retired in 1823? 
are still in life except George W. Towns who was some- 
what frail, with all his grace of person, and John Forsyth, 
w^hose physical frame, and form and development, made 
him a marked man in any presence, and without superiors. 

George M. Troup, whose life is a part of the history of 
this State for many years, is seventy-six years old, a large 
slaveholder on his plantations, with all the ease that 
wealth can purchase for the old, and all the freedom and 
independence of thought and speech that result from the 
remaining vigor of his strong and fearless mind. 



40 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

Wilson Lumpkin, aged seventy-four, William Schley, 
aged seventy-one, and George R. Gilmer, sixty-six, all 
men of above average native capacity, and of large expe- 
rience in public service, and of unquestioned probity 
and patriotism, are in the ease and comfort of home in 
private life, enjoying the reward of conscious public vir- 
tue and fidelity, and of duty well and faithfully per- 
formed. George W. Crawford, one of the most successful 
and popular of the modern governors, and one of the best 
of the old Whigs, lives in the ease of his private fortune, 
and declines the public honors in the gift of his party. 
He is fifty nine years old, and well preserved. Charles 
J. McDonald, after retiring from the executive office, pur- 
sued his law practice with success, and now discharges the 
arduous labors of justice of the supreme court ; and no 
judge of that court since its organization, twelve years 
ago, has died. 

Howell Cobb, one of the marked men of the State and 
of the Union, is still a comparatively young man. He 
was speaker in Congress before he was governor, and on 
his defeat for United States senator retired to private life 
until the next election for Congress in his district, when 
he accepted service in that body. He is supposed to be 
on the high road to the presidency of the United States 
by those who best comprehend his rare combination of 
mental powers and popular manners, his deep and un- 
swerving patriotism, integrity and fidelity, with a large 
measure of ambition for that extraordinary distinction. 

In Congress the array is exceptionally brilliant — Robert 
Toombs, one of the old Whig leaders, is a Democratic 
senator, with Alfred Iverson, an old Democrat. 

In addition to Howell Cobb, who has returned to the 
House, we have one of the brightest intellects of the 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 41 

Union, who has been constantly a member smce 1842, 
Alexander Hamilton Stephens. Hiram Warner, who had 
served in early life in the Legislature, three terms as judge 
of the superior court and one as justice of the supreme 
court, after several years' retirement, represents his district 
as an old line Democrat. John Henry Lumpkin, the 
nephew of Wilson and Joseph Henry, who is an old Demo- 
cratic leader of Cherokee, Georgia, has been solicitor, 
judge, and had large experience in Congress, with fair 
abilities and great personal fidelity and popularity. Na- 
thaniel Green Foster, a man of splendid form and person, 
an able lawyer and Baptist preacher, and James L. Seward, 
an able lawyer, represent the Savannah district. Robert 
P. Trippe, one of the favorite Whig leaders of middle 
Georgia, represents the Macon district. The Columbus 
district, where there are so many men of ability and dis- 
tinction, is represented by the elegant, polished, and gifted 
young Martin J. Crawford, whose name and kindred are 
largely blended in the State's history. 

Since the earliest of my recollection there has been an 
array of men of both parties in this State among whom 
it was an honor to be prominent and distinguished, some 
of whom have died, but very many still live. 

I was an enthusiastic listener, not long since, to that 
man who among the living is as generally beloved as any, 
Joseph Henry Lumpkin, describing to me the men promi- 
nent in his part of the State in former years. He had 
exalted opinions of many of them, but among them all 
William H. Crawford was the Ajax in mind, and a man 
of true nobility of character with all his powers. 

His lang:uaoi:e was, " He stood a full head and shoulders 
above all the men of his day in this State." He has now 
been dead twenty-three years, and if his great spirit ob- 



42 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

serves the a:ffairs of the country he so loved in life, no 
doubt he has joy in the height and grandeur to which his 
surviving admirer has risen. Lumpkin is in the full de- 
velopment of his physical and almost godlike manhood 
and intellectual vigor. He is not a politician from taste, 
though a decided Whig. He is a Christian and philan- 
thropist and a scholar of large attainments, and an orator 
of great and almost magic power that distinguished him 
from his early youth. Standing aloof from political pur- 
suits, extensive practice matured him as a lawyer and 
made him famous as advocate. Close application and 
labor on the supreme court bench, have ripened him 
into an able and profound judge. His uniform purity and 
virtue in public and private have securely established him 
in the confidence of lawyers and people of all parties ; 
and the tribute of no one man could be of more value 
than that he freely and sincerely pays to the personal 
friend and political idol of his youth and young manhood. 
But his senior brother, Wilson Lumpkin, who has main- 
tained in public office in both Houses of the State Legis- 
lature and of Congress, as governor for two terms, and in 
all places of public trust the unbroken confidence of his 
party and the respect and esteem of all good people in 
public and in private, is a severe and sterling Democrat. 
He admired John M. Dooly, had stronger faith in his 
political wisdom and integrity. John M. Dooly was, from 
tradition and description by those who have seen him, a 
widely different man from Wilson Lumpkin whom I have 
seen and talked with often. Lumpkin is a plain-spoken, 
candid, old ruddy man with white luxuriant hair, a man 
of labor and toil, of truth without fiction or poetry, who 
won his way to public confidence and position and held 
them by common sense, common honesty, industry, and 



MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 43 

integrity. Dooly was a man of electricity in body and 
mind, whose large, piercing black eye spoke itself in vol- 
umes of convincing power in harmony with his severe 
reason and logic. 

Many of the old men regard Thomas W. Cobb, some 
Duncan Gr. Campbell, some Eli S. Shorter and some John 
Forsyth, as the greatest man of that period. The last 
named seems to deserve special mention in connection 
with William H. Crawford, on account of their respective 
long and brilliant career and opposing political opinions. 
They lived in a section of the Union not favorable to the 
highest national honor on account of political weakness ; 
but it is doubtful if these men had many, if any, superiors 
in the Union in intellectual power or personal presence 
and magnetic influence over men. Both were of the 
highest type of physical development in the New World ; 
both ambitious, daring, and brave. Forsyth was a little 
younger than Crawford and survived him from 1834 to 
1841. They both came when young from Virginia, 
where heroes and statesmen were born, and transmitted 
the blood royal of republican liberty to their descend- 
ants. Crawford was in the Senate, and Forsyth in the 
House of Congress from this State in the early years of 
the century. Both have been distinguished in the Senate 
and House at different periods and as cabinet officers and 
as foreign ministers, Crawford in France, and Forsyth in 
Spain. 

Crawford the defeated candidate for president of the 
United States, in shattered health, the idol of his country- 
men, spent the last years of his life as judge of his circuit. 
Forsyth had been a United States senator as early as 1818, 
governor as early as 1827, and afterward returned to the 
Senate. Both died with the full confidence of their 



44 MY CONTEMPOKAEIES.— 1857. 

countrymen, and the halo of public honors that has 
gathered around their long, historic, and brilliant exer- 
cise of the masterly powers with which nature had en- 
dowed them is a part of the treasure the living have in 
the lives of the dead. 

A few years later, and coming near to the present, other 
leaders became prominent and powerful, were loved and 
honored by the people, and have passed away. Charles 
Dougherty, John McPherson Berrien, Andrew J. Miller, 
and James A. Meriwether of the "Whigs ; Walter T. Col- 
quitt, Hugh A. Haralson, Joseph Jackson and George W. 
Towns of the Democrats. With the men of the middle sec- 
tion of the State, Dooly, Harris, Cobb, and Crawford lived 
and have been succeeded by Lumpkin, Junius Hillyer, 
Howell Cobb, Hope Hull, William C. Dawson, and Francis 
H. Cone. Charles Dougherty was an idol with the bar and 
people. No standard is regarded as too high by which to 
measure the power of his mind or the magnitude of his 
heart, and none too gentle or too pure by which to test 
his priceless social virtues. He gave his counsel and ad- 
vice like the sun gives his light and heat ; all could feel 
their warmth and see their wisdom. Nature made him 
great, but the whig party failed to invest him with politi- 
cal power. But his defeat only kept, as similar fortune 
has kept many of our best men who are fit as he was for 
any station, in the shades of private life. 

His heart was in full accord with his mind ; and his 
moral courage was equal to any emergency. He differed 
from Berrien, Dawson, Jenkins, Toombs, Stephens and 
other leaders of his party, in 1850, as to the true course 
for the South, on account of anti-slavery aggressions on 
the part of the North ; and like a few others of the old 
Whigs younger in years, such as Lucius J. Gartrell, Wat- 



MY COXTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 45 

son G. Harris, James L. Seward, and James N. Ramsey, 
took open position with the Southern Rights Democrats 
of the State. 

John McPherson Berrien hegan the public service when 
young ; died old after he had been in it nearly half a cen- 
tury, and without a spot or stain upon his escutcheon. 

He was long engaged as solicitor, and afterwards judge 
of the eastern circuit ; member of the Legislature ; attor- 
ney general of the United States ; and for many years, 
at different periods in the United States Senate ; and dur- 
ing all his life as an eminent practitioner of the law. In 
all he was distinguished for his stability, dignity, urbanity, 
method and caution ; and for the highest grade of foren- 
sic and parliamentary ability ; and for devotion to his set- 
tled convictions of right. He was ten years the senior of 
his neighbor and personal and political friend, Judge Wil- 
liam Law : who has been less in political life ; but has 
much of the suavity and polish, dignity and probity, so 
justly and universally awarded the lamented senator, and 
is scarcely, if at all, his inferior as a lawyer and jurist. 

The most remarkable democratic leader of the genera- 
tion thus passed, and passing away in this State, was the 
contemporary, and, for a period, the rival of Judge Berrien 
for political championship in the Senate : Walter T. Col- 
quitt. As a member of the House and Senate, judge of 
the superior court, minister of the Gospel, practitioner 
and advocate as a lawyer and political stump orator, his 
name is a household word, from the time of my earliest 
memory. His contemporaries at the bar ascribe to him as 
an advocate powers that were marvellous, not to say, irre- 
sistible. His style of oratory on the stump, where I fre- 
quently heard him, had no model, or successful imitator 
in the men of the period. Many men have strong passion 



46 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

and power of delivery ; and can create intense excitement 
in large crowds of assembled masses in open air. But 
none were his equal in all the elements of a magic-work- 
ing orator : intensity of his own excitement and physical 
action, the music and harmony of a powerful voice under 
the command of a powerful mind and body. And none 
approximated him when the magic of his almost resistless 
eloquence gave place, often suddenly, to his humor, un- 
bounded in current; and his wit, that flared as quickly 
and brightly as the lightning ; and was as terrible on his 
foes as the thunderbolt itself. 

But his ardent love of truth made him too ardent a de- 
fender of right for the political times of his latter days. 
It made him a " Southern Rights Man," a " Fire Eater " 
as they were called, who made the cause of the South, in 
the attempt to stay the tide of Northern anti-slavery ag- 
gressions, paramount to parties. His strong enunciation 
in public and private, upon the magnitude of the impend- 
ing struggle which seemed to him imminent, now so hap- 
pily postponed, made him, in the opinion of many, an ex- 
tremist, and sectionalist, looking to the dreaded calamity 
of disunion and revolution. And such views in reference 
to him, by the people, for the vindication of whose rights 
he was, in their judgment, too ardent, disarmed him in 
his latter days of much of the power he could have other- 
wise possessed over the popular will. 

Hugh A. Haralson was not so brilliant or eloquent as 
Colquitt, Cobb and Johnson ; but was a man of fine pres- 
ence and bearing. His personal integrity and fidelity to 
the people who honored him, close attention to oificial 
duty, gave him a strong hold on the affections of the peo- 
ple of western Georgia j and made him a powerful Dem- 
ocratic leader. He was one of the few men whose terms 



MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 47 

of public office did not fluctuate with the ebbing and flow- 
ing of the closely matched parties of his district. 

One of the best men of the period was a man whose 
services were confined to his own State : the lamented 
Andrew J. Miller, of Augusta. Not ambitious, but devoted 
to the public gOod ; modest, yet bold and fearless ; an hon- 
est man loving the right, he was ever firm in maintaining 
it. He was not eloquent, but able ; not haughty, but 
proud in the dignity of a true and noble man, conscious 
of the rectitude of his purposes and fearless of criticism 
or censure. Mr. Miller had but few superiors, but the 
•friends of both, as well as political opponents, did not 
hesitate to rank above him, his neighbor and lifelong 
personal and political friend, — Charles J. Jenkins. 

Mr. Jenkins is one of the truly great, as well as noble 
men of the age. Not the equal of Stephens, Toombs, and 
his successful rival, "Johnson, in impassioned eloquence, in 
the capacity to move, stir and enthuse great multitudes 
of mixed people, his style, manner and bearing are more 
suited to leadership of intellectual assemblies. He is not 
the inferior of these in correctness, depth and vigor of 
thought. His style is as faultless, and his sentences as 
perfect. He speaks after deliberation, and never has to 
take back, modify or explain, in order to keep pace with 
other men or to drift with the popular current. 

James A. Meriwether, another Whig leader, has also 
lately gone, of whose mental powers a higher estimate is 
due than many of his associates and friends were willing 
to award him. He had been a Whig member of Congress 
and served with distinction ; had graced the bar and bench, 
and was at the time of his death an honored Representa- 
tive of Putnam county, and speaker of the House of Rep- 
resentatives of the State Legislature. 



48 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

The Warren Brothers. — These distinguisTied lawyers 
and prominent members of the old Whig party in south- 
ern Georgia are natives of Burke county. Lott was born 
in October, 1798, and Eli in February, 1801. The father, 
Joseph Warren, removed to Lawrence county, where he 
and the mother died while Lott and Eli were two of a 
large family of children, and were raised in Wilkinson 
county, by their brother-in-law. Reverend Charles Cul- 
pepper, who educated them in the country schools, 
neither ever having been at school in a town or village. 
Lott came to the bar at Dublin about 1820, was after- 
wards solicitor general and State senator. In 1828 was 
elected judge of the southern circuit, as a Troup man, 
was afterwards beaten for the office by Honorable Moses 
Fort, a Clark man, and removed to Americus, where he 
practised a number of years and removed to Albany ; was 
elected to Congress in 1838 and 1840, and was twice 
elected judge of the southern circuit, and his administra- 
tion is remarked for ability and integrity. He is, more- 
over, a Baptist minister of pure and spotless character. 
He, like his brother Eli, never drank intoxicating liquors, 
never chewed or smoked tobacco. Eli, when a youth, 
spent two years in Mississippi ; but returned to Georgia 
and, in the office of his brother, studied law and was ad- 
mitted to the bar in 1823. He served many years as a 
member of the Legislature of Lawrence county, in the 
House and Senate ; and was often elected without oppo- 
sition. He now resides at the beautiful town of Perry, 
in Houston county, and practises law. 

It is doubtful if any State has produced such an array 
of intellectual men as Georgia at this period. In truth, 
the number is such, of men whose endowments would 
have made them noted in other times, that abilities alone, 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 49 

without attending propitious circumstances, are not suf- 
ficient to secure more than ordinary local distinction. 
The general diffusion of education, and the manifest re- 
wards of superior intellectuality have summoned the mil- 
lion to the competition, while many have been aroused 
to effort by the demands of poverty, or the urgent claims 
of business in their respective trades, avocations, and po- 
sitions in life. 

There are comparatively few who have been devoted 
to literature, or to study and learning, except as they 
seemed necessary in and ancillary to their success in 
other pursuits. 

We have had and now have many preachers in the or- 
thodox churches in this State, of pulpit eloquence that 
would have distinguished them in this or any country in 
Europe a century or two ago, Avho have been known only 
to a limited extent beyond the circle of pastoral duties. 
The State has given many able preachers to the church, 
such, for instance, as Lovic Pierce, James 0. Andrew, Jesse 
Mercer, John E. Dawson, Alonzo Church, S. K. Talmage, 
Stephen Elliott, Ignatius Few, John Colinsworth, Charles 
D. Malory, Vincent Thornton, William Arnold, Andrew 
Hammel, Isaac Waddell, Asa Chandler, Billington M. San- 
ders, ('yrus White, James Henderson, Joel Colley, Wil- 
liam Moseley, A. B. Longstreet, John Walker Glenn, Jo- 
seph S. Baker, Adam T. Holmes, Allen Turner, Samuel 
Anthony, Jesse H. Campbell, Jonathan Davis, Alexander 
Means, George F. Pierce, Henry H. Tucker, Jesse Boring, 
William J. Parks, William T. Brantley, Charles M. Irvine, 
James E. Evans, Russell Renneau, Caleb Key, Armenius 
Wright, Shaler G. Hillyer, Alfred T. Mann, Patrick H. 
Mell, E. H. Myers, Nathaniel Macon Crawford, John Jones, 
John S. Wilson, Edward Neufville, Henry KoUock, John 



50 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

P. Duncan, Eustace Spear, Isaac Axson, H^ojt, C. W. 

Lane. 

Preachers, like lawyers, differ from each other in men- 
tal and physical constitution, in temper, manner, and 
doubtless in depth, stability, and sincerity of piety their 
chief qualification for their sacred mission. Those who 
have distinguished themselves, and accomplished great 
good, have differed widely in early advantages of educa- 
tion, and in their progress in and cultivation of general 
learning ; as in the above short list, which contains some 
of the most learned, as well as a few whose learning was 
limited almost to the text and commentaries of standard 
authors on the Bible. They also differ widely as to their 
methods of preserving, to transmit to future generations, 
the benefits of their study and labor. Some will live in 
"their sermons and theological disquisitions ; while others, 
dealing alone in, and producing powerful effect by extem- 
poraneous logic, pathos and eloquence, will live only in 
Tague tradition, and that but for a brief period of the 
world's rapid march and change. 

It is a period of silent ^revolution in the methods of 
propagating religion and gaining members to the Chris- 
tian churches. Instead of appealing to the middle aged 
and the old, and relying on persons of mature mind and 
age to keep the ranks of the laity filled, and to supply 
the places of departing and retiring clergy, it is found 
that the children are more easily inducted, and more to 
be relied on for increasing the membership. Instead of 
converting people who are hardened in sin and inured 
to vice, the leading minds of the churches have directed 
their policy more to early training, and to bringing up 
people to be religious from childhood. Hence the Sab- 
bath school system has become popular and in general 



MY COXTEMPOR ARIES.— 1857. 51 

use. Men of ability and eloquence, instead of preaching 
to large crowds at camp and mass religious meetings, who 
are not often accustomed to hear eloquent discourses, now, 
on account of the increase of preachers and local churches, 
preach more often in church edifices and to regular con- 
gregations and organized churches ; and hence it is more 
difficult to become widely known, even if there were 
fewer eloquent pulpit orators. 

It is not so with lawyers and politicians. The contests 
over life, liberty, and property draw the people to the fo- 
rum of public justice, and the antagonisms of opposing 
parties arouse the masses, and draw the people together 
to hear their chosen speakers and leaders. Political lit- 
erature and news are far more attractive to the great ma- 
jority of men than that of art, science, or the Bible. 

It attracts attention that a large volume of legal talent 
in this State is in brothers, such as Alexander H. and Lin- 
ton Stephens,Charles and William Dougherty of this State, 
and Robert Dougherty of Alabama ; Howell and Thomas 
R. R. Cobb, Eli and Lott Warren of Southern Georgia ; 
Daniel and Alexander McDougald of Columbus; Edward 
Y. of Lagrange, and Joshua Hill of Madison ; Nathaniel 
and Albert Foster of Madison, Ebenezer D. and Charles 
G. of Newnan, and William McKinley of Milledgeville j 
John I. of Newton, and Stuart Floyd of Morgan county, 
Edmond H. of Talbot, and Bedford S. Worrell of Stewart 
county, John Worrell of Sumter county ; Obadiah C. of 
Upson, and William Gibson of Warren county ; Seaborn 
Jones of Muscogee, and John A. Jones of Polk county ; 
Augustus H. Hansell of Pulaski, and Andrew J. Hansell 
of Cobb county ; William F. of Coweta, and Gilbert J. 
Wright of Carroll county ; William W. and Henry. F. 
Merrell of Carroll county ; Philemon and Edward D. 



52 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

Tracy of Macon ; William and Charles D. Phillips of Cobb 
county ; Eugenius L. and Marcellus Douglass of Randolph 
county ; Richard F. Lyon and John Lyon of Dougherty 
county ; Eugenius A. and James A. Nesbit of Macon ; 
William K. De Graffenreid of Macon, and Benjamin B. De 
Graffenreid of Milledgeville ; Samuel Hall and Robert S. 
Hall of Macon county ; John McPherson Berrien of Sa- 
vannah, Thomas M. Berrien of Waynesboro, and I. W. M. 
Berrien of Rome ; George S. and John W. Owens, Savan- 
nah ; Joseph E. and James R. Brown, Cherokee county ; 
Lucius J. Gartrell of P'ulton, and John 0. Gartrell of Cobb 
county ; George N. of Cobb, and Paul Lester of Forsyth 
county ; John R. and Thomas W. Alexander, Rome ; 
George D. of Cobb, and John H. Rice of Cass county ; 
Hiram and Obadiah Warner of Meriwether county ; John 
W. Barney of Jasper, and Thomas I. Barney of Morgan 
county ; Henry H. and William Gumming of Augusta ; 
George, John, and William R. Schley of Augusta ; L T. 
and R. I. Bacon of Lagrange ; Samuel C. of Sumter, and 
William D. Elam of Marion county. A large number of 
whom have been prominent in the legal profession, and 
many of them in the politics of the State. But it only 
presents a partial list of the prominent and gifted men of 
this period. 

Barnard Hill of Talbot ; David Irwin of Cobb ; Warren 
Akin of Cass ; Charles Murphy of DeKalb ; William H. 
Dabney of Gordon ; Nathan L. Hutchings of Gwinnett ; 
Junius Wingfield of Putnam ; James M. Calhoun and John 
Collier of Fulton ; David H. Vason and Henry Morgan 
of Dougherty ; Augustus Reese, Thomas P. SafFold and 
Isham Fannin of Morgan ; William M. Reese of Wilkes ; 
Edward H. Pottle of Warren ; Isaac E. Bower of Baker ; 
William C. Perkins of Randolph ; Eldridge G, Cabaniss 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 53 

and James S. Pinchard of Monroe ; David W. Lewis of 
Hancock ; W. H. Dabney, of Gordon ; Thomas Chandler, 
of Carroll county, — are among the stable men of fair 
ability without brilliancy, and take high rank in their sec- 
tions of the State. 

Amoncr the older class of able men are William Ezzard 
and Amos W. Hammond of Atlanta ; Iverson L Harris 
and Augustus H. Kenan of Milledgeville ; Washington 
Poe, Absalom H. Chappell, Samuel Terry Bailey, John 
Rutherford, James I. Gresham, Henry G.Lamar of Macon ; 
Junius Hillyer of Athens ; William T. Gould, Ebenezer 
Starnes, John Millege of Augusta ; William S. Rockwell, 
William B. Flemming, the lamented Robert M. Charlton, 
William Law, Levi S. De Lyon of Savannah; Thomas 
Butler King of Glynn county. 

Amontj; the brilliant men in middle aoje are John E. 
Ward, Francis S. Bartow, Henry R. Jackson, Alexander 
R Lawton of Savannah ; John W. H. Underwood, Augus- 
tus R. Wright of Rome ; William Hope Hull, and Cincin- 
natus Peeples of Athens ; Luther J. Glenn, Lucius J. Gar- 
trell, Basil H. Overby of Atlanta ; William W. Clark, John 
A. Tucker and Burwell K. Harrison of Stewart county ; 
Robert McMillan of Habersham county ; Thomas W. 
Thomas of Elbert county. 

Among the able and prominent men of middle age are 
Edward J. Harden, Thos E. Lloyd, Henry Williams of 
Savannah ; Robert P. Trippe of Monroe; Lucius H. Feather- 
stone of Heard county; Blount C. Ferrell of Troup county; 
Hobert J. Cowart of Atlanta ; Elijah W. Chastain of Gil- 
mer ; H. S. M'Kay of Sumter county ; Samuel Y. Jamison 
of Union county; Richard M. Johnson of Hancock ; James 
Milner of Cass county ; Andrew H. H. Dawson, J. M. 
Lovell of Savannah ; Richard Simms and Joseph Law of 



54 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

Bainbridge ; Samuel S. Stafford of Early county, Amos T. 
Akerman, Eobert Hester of Elbert county ; Mial M. Tid- 
well of Fayette county ; Thomas Morris of Franklin, Ben- 
jamin Oliver of Heard county; James P. Simmons of Gwin- 
nett county ; Andrew J. Hansell of Cobb county ; James 
A. Pringle of Houston ; Samuel P. Thoward of Jackson 
county ; George A. Hall, Obadiah Warner of Meriwether 
county; Hartford Green of Pike county ; Leonard T. Doy- 
lall of Griffin; Robert S. Burch, A. T. Mclntyre of Thomas 
county ; John B. Morgan of Troup county ; Noel B. Night 
of Cobb county ; Porter Ingram of Harris. 

Among the prominent younger men my seniors, some 
of whom are able and brilliant, are Logan E. Bleckley 
of Atlanta ; Hugh Buchanan of Coweta ; James M. Smith 
of Upson ; Levi B. Smith of Talbot ; William A Harris of 
Worth ; Willis A. Hawkins of Sumter ; John L. Harris of 
Glynn ; Ambrose R. Wright of Jefferson ; William T. Wof- 
ford of Cass; Edward Dale Chisolm of Polk; Thomas Harde- 
man, Jr. and Alexander M. Spear of Bibb ; James N. Ram- 
sey and James M. Mobley of Harris county ; Alfred H. 
Colquitt of Baker ; Benjamin H. Bighan of Troup ; Joel 
A. Billups of Morgan ; Leander W. Crook of Chattooga ; 
Ruf us W. McCane of Spalding ; W. S. Wallace of Taylor ; 
George T. Bartlett of Jasper ; Alexander Pope of Wilkes ; 
James R. Lyon of Butts; Miles W. Lewis of Green; Richard 
H. Clark of Baker ; Samuel Hall of Macon ; John A. Jones, 
Jr., Beverly E. Thornton of Muscogee; John Jinks 
Jones of Burke county ; Charles W. Mabry of Heard 
county ; Daniel S. Printup of Floyd county ; Osborne A. 
Lochrane of Bibb county. 

There are many men who have attained political dis- 
tinction who are not lawyers, among them the learned 
and eloquent Dr. Homer V. M. Miller of Rome, a man 



MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 55 

long distinguished as the Demosthenes of the mountains, 
who has never been elected to a public office ; the brilliant 
and eloquent James Watson Harris of Cass county ; Gen. 
William B. WofFord of Habersham; Thomas Stocks of 
Green ; Gen. Peter Cone of Bullock ; Joseph Dunnegan of 
Hall ; Dr. George D. Phillips of Habersham ; James Gard- 
ner and Thomas C. Howard, who retired from the law 
practice early to enter upon the brilliant career of polit- 
ical editors ; Theodore L. Guerry of Randolph ; and John 
D. Stell of Fayette county ; Simpson Fouche of Floyd 
county ; Mark A. Cooper of Cass county. 

These lists do not embrace by far all, but present a fair 
representation of the prominent Georgians of the period, 
extending as it does from the old and retiring, down to 
many not much older than myself whose race of life is 
still to run. 

There are two men now in advanced life, about whom a 
separate volume might be written, more important to the 
prosperity of the State than any of our politicians, who 
long ago retired from law and politics to carry forward to 
its grand success the great railway improvement of the 
State ; these are Richard R. Cuyler of Savannah and 
John P. King of Augusta. 

If each individual mentioned were the subject of a truth- 
ful sketch, there would be manifest the greatest possible 
diversity of talents and capabilities, of learning, of habits 
of industry and application, of style and manner, of culture 
and taste, as well as moral character. Many of them are 
church members, and some are consistently religious ; 
others far less consistent in practice. Many who do not 
profess to be religious and are not church members are 
stable in morals, and noted for purity of character in 
public and private. Some are addicted to drunkenness, 



56 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

some to gaming, and some to other sensual vices; but 
the array of personal integrity, honor, morality, and 
purity of private character, is lovely to contemplate by 
all who are interested in the preservation of the glory 
of the present and transmitting it to future generations. 

I present five men together whom I closely noticed 
because of their eccentricities as well as power and influ- 
ence, and their striking diversity of character : Owen H. 
Kenan, John A. Jones, Thomas A. Latham, John Fay, 
and William H. Underwood. None of them are noted 
for piety, or the use of religious pretension for worldly 
aims. Jones, Kenan, and Latham defy the Church and 
society in some of its forms and requirements. Like 
many of our public men they suffer the misfortune of 
being addicted to profane swearing in public and private, 
a mode of parlance and emphasis that, like that of drink- 
ing in high life, has to be tolerated on account of the 
respectability and number of men of wealth and social 
power Avho follow it ; but which lowers the dignity and 
weakens the influence of many of the able men of the 
State. 

Kenan was prominent as a lawyer and judge, out- 
spoken, impulsive, and ardent in everything in which he 
engaged, exacting and dictatorial, as well as honest and 
brave. A man of tall and large frame, commanding man- 
ner and air, and severe rough features ; wore a double- 
breasted coat buttoned around his chest, and a heavy 
watch-chain and seal, and the balance of his toilet in neg- 
ligence. He is the subject of many anecdotes and narra- 
tives among the old lawyers. The latter years of his 
life have been on a rich farm in Murray county, sur- 
rounded by wealth and ease. 

Jones, who also has retired from practice on his estate 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 57 

in Polk county, is stout and vigorous and hale at three- 
score and ten, or thereabouts, and has all the fire and 
courage of a man of forty. Though not regarded as the 
equal in law learning and power as an advocate with his 
brother Seaborn, he has been when pursuing the practice an 
able lawyer, and was for a short time judge of his circuit. 
He is a severe advocate, a generous and confiding friend, 
and a vindictive foe ; has reduced Jefferson's theory of 
State rights and sovereignty to extreme radical ideas and 
is an intolerant partisan. He was for several years 
prominent as member of the Legislature, and is the au- 
thor of the Bill of 1847 establishing or allowing a short 
form of pleading which dispenses, in great part, with 
legal knowledge and skill in the pleader, the labor of 
drafting, and has therefore come into common use in our 
courts. 

His hatred to the people of the North and of the gov- 
ernment of the United States knows no bounds, and he 
lives in hope of the political separation and independence 
of the slaveholding States — wears his hair and beard 
long, and openly and often swears never to shave until 
the State of Georgia shall have seceded from the Union. 

Thomas A. Latham, of Campbell county, is a man of 
more general and pleasurable observation and remark, 
whom everybody who knows him, in defiance of the 
ordinary basis of full trust and confidence, naturally and 
voluntarily likes and derives amusement and pleasure 
from because he is ready to do good and be kind to all, 
and can be provoked to hurt or harm none save those 
who are so unwise as to assail him or depredate upon his 
rights. He is in excess of six feet in height when at ease, 
and a good deal so when aroused, and is of form and size 
to match. Body, head, and features large, the skin that 



58 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

shows age, as well as gray hairs, is of coarse cellular tis- 
sue. He stands with his body much in advance of his 
lower limbs and feet, which are also large. lie adheres 
to the old method of tying his huge cravat and to the 
gorgeous ruffle bosom shirt, to the double-breasted, long 
swallow-tail coat, and allows on big occasions the expan- 
sive bandanna handkerchief to hang out gorgeously from 
the rear pocket. When quiet he is almost as still as a 
tombstone, when aroused he is almost a volcano in human 
form. The current of his affections is like a river in 
its flow, and that of his invective and resentment like the 
lava from Vesuvius. 

He prides himself in being from old Virginia and in 
all the amenities of the primitive stock of gentlemen 
when he is amiable, gentle, and kind, but defies all forms 
and ceremonies when the exigencies of the occasion, or 
the fury of intoxication, disengage the sleeping elements 
of the antagonist. We regard him as a careless practi- 
tioner, but in the cases in which he prepares he is power- 
ful and terrible. His voice is strong like his body, his 
speeches are loud j his capacity to unsettle the dignity of 
a court-room by ridicule and anecdote and physical per- 
formance to suit are unsurpassed, and he carries this rare 
faculty into the walks of private life — often sits in appar- 
ently profound abstraction, undisturbing as a statue but a 
close listener to the running conversation of the company, 
and, when the subject has been worn threadbare or takes 
an unsatisfactory turn, suddenly flares his sententious wit 
and ridicule, or his commendation and applause, like a 
shooting meteor that startles, delighting or discomfiting, 
and often breaks it up into a storm of merriment and 
laughter. All his instincts and emotions, as well as his 
education and practices, are democratic. In private in- 



MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 59 

terview he is gentle, mild, generous, and confiding ; in 
debate, public or private, never fails to become boisterous 
in tone and manner in praise of his own and denunciation 
of the opposing party. 

John Ray of Coweta county, is of Irish birth and 
brogue ; has a well-rounded, though not tall body -, large 
head, round full features, and prominent, full dark rolling 
eyes. For the last quarter of a century has been promi- 
nent as a lawyer, advocate, and democratic orator in 
western Georgia. Honorable, honest, consequential in 
air and manner ; sensitive and brave, suspicious of foes, 
and confiding with friends; the theme and occasion of 
many bar anecdotes, which his brethren seldom venture 
to narrate in his presence. He now retires in the feeble 
health of advanced age, in ease and wealth. 

William H. Underwood, differs from them all. He was 
naturally of well-formed body, and head, and face, — the 
former somewhat sunken, and the latter wrinkled by age 
before I ever saw him. He was of early, severe study 
and extensive learning, and memory tenacious to old age. 
He was a lawyer by life-long practice, except when he 
performed the duties of judge in early life. He came to 
Cherokee, Ga., long before my day here, from Elbert 
county, where he was accustomed to meet Dooley, Thomas 
W. Cobb, Jeptha V. Harris, William H. Crawford, Dun- 
can G. Campbell, Tait and Blackburn, and other great 
lawyers of the early part of the century. 

His observation was close, and his criticism incisive. 
He detected faults in all men, and their faults made 
stronger impressions than their virtues on his mind, that 
revelled in its own freedom, and defied the opinions of 
those of weaker mould. He despised two classes, and 
could scent their qualities in more men than it was popu- 



60 MY CONTEMPOEAEIES.— 1857. 

lar to avow and publish. One hypocrites in religion, the 
other demagogues in politics. 

He never was a democrat as the word is now inter- 
preted, or a republican as it was understood in his early 
life. He has always believed in a strong general govern- 
ment ; had a contempt for clamors of State rights in all 
their forms, and was one of the few avowed federalists 
of this State, and was the tool or slave of no party. He 
was a whig, because the whigs were opposed to the 
democrats ; not that he loved whigs, but hated the demo- 
crats, as a party, and condemned the political ideas that 
were the basis of their organization, and popular element 
of success. He had profound respect for leaders he 
believed to be able and patriotic and honest, who were 
few in number. 

His cynic wit, so proverbial, and so dreaded by court, 
bar, and social companions, was the natural result of his 
order of mind, his education and methods of study, his 
life and honest opinions of men and things. And it came 
unbidden and welling up like the water from a fountain 
acted on by the law of gravity. If it pleased others he 
was happy ; if it hurt others it wounded him in turn. 

I, like others, long stood aloof in fear of the bristles 
that pointed gangrene at my feeble powers and efforts. 
But I lived to get beyond the icicles and crust he pre- 
sented to the world, and to find that in the rear of it all 
there was the big, warm heart of a noble old man, who 
would do all the world good, if in his power. 

William Dougherty and Henry L. Benning are men of 
the Columbus bar, whose fame rests, the first on his 
achievements and powers as a lawyer, the other, as law- 
yer and judge of the State supreme court. Dougherty is 
of the splendid physique of his deceased brother Charles ; 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 61 

and, having passed the first half century of life, is so fresh 
in body and mind as to bid fair to live another fifty 
years. He, like Benning, is moral and temperate in eat- 
ing, and abstains from liquors and tobacco, and like him, 
intemperate in labor. There are but few with whom to 
compare him in order to fix his standard of ability. He 
is genial in social life, stutters slightly and occasionally, 
though fluent in conversation, and is full of heart-stirring 
and mirth-provoking anecdote. He is powerful, logical, 
brief and bold in argument, and almost irresistible before 
court or jury. He is withal an enemy, and the subject 
of enmity, because he has long been the hero of a financial 
warfare against the stockholders of certain banks that 
failed, with a large number of their bills in circulation in 
the hands of the people, to make them liable to the hold- 
ers of those bills. He has a large personal interest as 
well as great stock of professional ambition and reputation 
in the issue. The war involves many people of wealth 
and influence, and calls forth the strong men of the bar 
in that part of the State to protect and defend the stock- 
holders against the suits on the defunct bank bills. 

Henry L. Benning was one of the able lawyers arrayed 
on that side ; was for some of the parties and son-in-law 
of Seaborn Jones, who was a party largely interested as 
well as leading lawyer in the defence. Such was the sit- 
uation at the time of the election by the Legislature of 
Benning as associate justice of the supreme court, in 1853, 
against Judge Nesbit, whose opinions were not favorable 
to the relief of the stockholders. When the questions 
came before the supreme court, in cases in which Benning 
was not of counsel, but involved the same questions as 
the cases did in which he had been employed for other 
parties, Mr. Dougherty challenged his right to preside 



62 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

and try them with the two other judges, and demanded 
that he should retire from the bench. Benning, with a 
firmness strongly tested by the sentiment of the bar of 
the State against it with but few exceptions, overruled 
the challenge ; holding that he was not legally disquali- 
fied by his having been employed and formed his opinions 
from investigating the questions in other cases before his 
election as judge, or by his relationship to persons inter- 
ested in the questions and not parties in the cases before 
him. That it was a stern duty imposed by law and his 
oath of office, which he cannot shirk or evade, to preside 
in all cases that come before the court, in which, by his 
election, qualification, and commission, he has had given 
to him power and authority to preside. The lawyers 
of the State not interested as counsel differ. Some 
able and stable men sustain Benning, while a ma- 
jority think he should have retired. But even some 
of those agree with Benning in his judgment and dissent- 
ing opinions as to the liability of the stockholders after 
the dissolution of the corporations. The discussion ex- 
tended to the press and political circles, in which it was 
freely asserted that the political influence of the bank 
stockholders was brought to bear upon the Legislature in 
the nomination of Benning over other prominent and 
able aspirants, and in his election ; and as freely asserted, 
on the other hand, that it was an element of weakness, 
on account of the popular sympathy in other parts of the 
State with the bill holders. And it was also charged 
that the refusal to re-elect Judge Nesbit, and the election 
of a Democrat, was a violation of the implied compact 
between the parties, when the court was organized, not to 
make politics a test in the election of judges. It has, how- 
ever, been the custom of both parties, with but few excep- 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 63 

tions in the past, to elect their own men to all offices, 
when they had the numerical strength to do so. Benning, 
like Dougherty, is a man of learning, research, and ability 
as well as courage, integrity, and purity of private char- 
acter. 

Columbus has furnished a magnificent cluster of 
lawyers besides Colquitt, Dougherty and Benning, some 
of whom have figured largely and others sparingly in pol- 
itics. Among the more noted, Daniel and Alexander 
McDougald, Joseph Sturgis, Alfred Iverson, Marshall J. 
Welborn, Grigsby E. Thomas, Adam G. Foster, Hines 
Holt, James Johnson, and Seaborn Jones, to whom, many 
who knew them all well, award, that in some respects, 
and in the general average of powers as counsellor, prac- 
titioner and advocate he was somewhat the superior. 

Two men among the most perfect models of their re- 
spective style of man, and among the most universally 
beloved of the old Whio; leaders who retired from high 
official position on the ascendency of Democratic power 
in the Legislature, one from the United States Senate, the 
other from the supreme court bench, were William Crosby 
Dawson, lately deceased, of Greensboro; and Eugenius 
A. Nesbit, of Macon, still living. Dawson has been dis- 
tinguished for all that good will to men, kindness, and 
urbanity can produce in a single character. A man of 
medium size and height, with large, broad nose, somewhat 
flat face and forehead, and eye radiant with intelligence, 
and inviting good nature and charity, indicating his gen- 
erous and genial social nature to all who ever approached 
him. He was endowed by nature with only fair average 
abilities, which have been largely cultivated at the bar, 
on the bench, in both houses of Congress, and as grand 
master of masons. 



G4 MY CONTEMPOEAKIES.— 1857. 

Nesbit is a model man in form of body, arms, hands, 
neck, head and face ; but is small, far below the average 
size of the Anglo-Saxon in this State, but is of durable 
temperament and elastic physical constitution. He is of 
unostentatious grace, self reliance, somewhat severe dig- 
nity, and a presence that forbids familiar, vulgar approach. 
He is of pure public and private character, and a Chris- 
tian. His career as a Whig leader and as representative 
in Congress was popular ; and his research and learning 
adorn the early volumes of the supreme court reports, 
where his opinions are recorded, and which take high 
rank with American jurists. 

He is contemporary of Samuel Terry Bailey, of Macon ; 
and Dawson, with Francis H. Cone, of Greensboro ; both 
lawyers of superior ability, learning and large success, of 
northern birth who came in early life to this State, but 
who differ widely from each other. Bailey's habits of 
thought, study, and practice caused him to stand some- 
what aloof from the brethren in social life, but he was him- 
self always thoroughly prepared, and brought to every 
contest a large measure of severe criticism. 

Cone, large and portly, with a piercing black eye, was 
always free and full in conference ; bold, confident and 
defiant in argument and tactics before any court, high or 
low, or the jury. As lawyer, judge, legislator, he was 
thorough and profound ; and in social life, as playful as a 
boy. His humor is a perennial spring, and his anecdotes 
take the widest range, from the grave and learned, to the 
ridiculous and gross. As a Democratic leader he lost 
caste with the people after his encounter and stabbing 
Mr. Stephens, in 1848. 

Judge Nesbit is also contemporary at Macon with Ab- 
salom H. Chappell, a man of tall and stately dignity, and 



MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 65 

great integrity, as well as learning and ability. Like 
most of the great old lawyers, he is not inclined to accept 
any legal proposition as settled ; but prepares thoroughly 
on authority to support every possibly disputed premise, 
and exhausts every point in debate, never considering 
his work done until the edifice of an unanswerable and 
exhaustive argument is complete. 

Three of the ablest men of upper Georgia are at Rome : 
Augustus R. Wright, John W. H. Underwood, and John 
Ramsey Alexander. 

Wright is of somewhat spare and erect, but of strong 
and durable as well as active body ; is of the sanguo-ner- 
vous-bilious temperament, full of emotion, impetuous and 
rapid in all his mental operations. lie loves truth and 
despises consistency when the two seem to come in con- 
flict. Has the reputation of being changeable in religion 
and politics, having in turn been a preacher of the Meth- 
odists and Baptists, and a leader of the Whig and Demo- 
cratic parties. He is a man of learning as well as accu- 
rate thought, never was a student in the ordinary 
acceptation of the word, for he is a genius, takes in, ab- 
sorbs and comprehends things without mental plodding. 
His speeches always draw crowds, at the bar and on the 
hustings ; full of wit and humor, with a thorough under- 
standing of human passion and sympathy. His voice is 
like a clarion in clearness and expansive power ; and in 
issues that call forth his great exertions his eloquence 
rises to grandeur and sublimity. 

Underwood has the advantage and disadvantage of hav- 
ing a distinguished father in the same profession. The 
one to be put forward under favorable auspices in youth, 
the other the tardiness with which the public accepts the 
conclusion that the son is equal to the father in real merit 



66 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 

and ability; because not all the sons of great men are 
great ; and even where they inherit the parental mind, 
by reason of the care and exemption from toil the father's 
success brings to the sons, and the groundless confidence 
reposed in ancestral greatness as a safe passage through 
the world, the sons often fail ; but not so of Underwood. 
He is of fine form and person, of fluent language and 
delivery in speeches and in conversation. His voice is 
clear and distinct, though not capable like Wright's of ex- 
panding and enlarging in volume with the passion and 
power of the oration. But, nevertheless, he is a powerful 
and effective advocate and stump speaker, a learned and 
able lawyer and counsellor. His father's wit is a thunder- 
bolt that regards not the company or presence, and con- 
sults no man's opinions or feelings. ' His is the gentle 
and refreshing breeze, and sometimes almost a gale, that 
fans and cools and enlivens all men, and blows nobody ill. 

Alexander is not distinguished for wit nor eloquence, but 
is a sound and safe counsellor and effective and logical 
advocate whom passion never betrays into error ; a safe 
ally and a dreaded foe ; open, candid, true and unimpas- 
sioned. All three of the men are of pure private character. 

Henry K. Jackson, of Savannah, and William Hope 
Hull, are men of rare production, universal confidence, 
and general admiration. The first the cousin, the latter 
the neighbor, and both life-long bosom friends, of Howell 
Cobb, and both Democrats from youth. Hull is much 
like Cobb in size and form, without favor of features, an(i 
in breadth, quickness, and power of mind, which has been 
confined mainly to the law practice. 

Jackson was an ardent and impassioned student and 
advocate, full of ambition and chivalry, and proud custo- 
dian of the honor and dauntless courage as well as ability 



MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 67 

of his historic family. He was a gallant commander of a 
Georgia regiment in the late Mexican war ; has been an 
able and inflexible judge, and an eloquent and effective 
Democratic orator. He is, withal, a man of literary taste 
and cultivation, and of rare poetic gifts. As lawyer, 
scholar, and patriot, he is loved by his able associates, se- 
niors and juniors, of the Savannah bar, and by the people 
of the State. 

Among the multitude of able and promising of the v 
younger class of my seniors, I mention particularly six a 
little older than myself, and nearly of equal ages, who are 
endowed naturally with great minds, each having the 
most abundant capacity to sustain himself in any height 
to which the political seas may drift, or the storms of 
party drive him. Robert G. Harper, and Lucius Q. C. La- 
mar, of Newton; Thomas R. R. Cobb, of Clarke; Linton 
Stephens, of Hancock ; Benjamin H. Hill, of Troup ; and 
Joseph E. Brown, of Cherokee county. 

It is rare to find among so large a number approxi- 
mating them, in any State or country, such a number of 
contemporaries who are the equals of these ; and they all 
differ from each other in mind and temper. 

Harper and Lamar, after graduating at Emory college 
and tarrying in the vestibule of court till their beards 
grew, set out as partners in law practice at Covington. 
Harper is gentle and modest, but firm, resolute, and per- 
sistent. The rays of the diamond sparkle more brightly 
as the scintillations of genius are struck by action and 
contact, and as the obscuring rubbish of modesty and 
unpretension is thrown aside, leaving bare to the gaze of 
the most astute critic the God-made man of worth; and 
yet he is less known, less appreciated, applauded and 
honored than the others. 



68 ^ MY COIsTTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

Lucius Lamar is of over-endowed brain and nerve 
power, is charged as if by a galvanic battery in all his 
physical and mental composition when called forth to 
make intellectual effort. Impetuous from inherited love 
of right, and antipathy to wrong ; honest himself, he 
demands more than mortal effort and ambition can achieve; 
that is, to see all other men true and honest. No power 
is too high to be questioned, no influence potent enough 
to awe him. Disappointment may await, but its augurs 
have no terrors for the brave heart and buoyant hopes of 
this young man eloquent, who comes heralded by pa- 
rental greatness and powerful family prestige. 

Thomas Cobb and Linton Stephens are alike in one in- 
cident and barrier to their hopes of public political 
honors. They have each a senior brother among the pop- 
ular and ambitious men of the period ; each has an idol 
in his own household, above self and next to the Deity. 
Cobb is a great, learned, laborious, untiring, ambitious 
lawyer, while his brother Howell, with a larger brain but 
none the more powerful, carries all his plans and aims 
into the line of political promotion; and the junior is 
none the less fit for high position and power in the State. 

Linton Stephens differs from his brother in all but 
great mind, courage, integrity and fraternal devotion. 
Alexander has always, when composed, looked like he was 
almost ready for the undertaker. Linton has a bilious, 
nervous composition, with a strong frame and hard mus- 
cles that can stand labor and endure exposure. He is 
brave, and despises the opposite quality ; confident in his 
own judgment, and contemns the feeble reasoning power 
that reaches an opposite conclusion. Careless in manner 
and in dress, fears no personal opposition or danger, and 
carries his life in his hand for the friends he confides in 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 69 

and loves, yet assails or invades none who assail or invade 
not him. He is shaded by the fame of his brother, but 
for powerful, severe logic, and aggressive, persistent, ex- 
haustive analysis and argument he has but few equals in 
the State. 

Benjamin H. Hill is one of the rare young men of the 
age, and exceeds them all in the most coveted and courted 
gift of political aspirants, — popular eloquence. He has 
full self control upon all emergencies, at the bar of the 
supreme court, before the judge of the circuit, or the jury, 
where he is irresistible, and in the popular meetings, large 
and small. 

Nature made him an orator by giving him a command- 
ing and attractive person, a large and active brain, and 
unbounded capacity for utterance. He has the physi- 
cal power to rise with his own estimate of the magnitude 
of his theme, and I have never seen his spirit fag or his 
voice fail to meet the enormous demands of his fruitful 
imagination. He has the courage to assert any premises 
that may be needed, and it puzzles the severest critics to 
detect the error of argumentation to sustain what he as- 
serts. 

Most of the old party leaders in opposition to the De- 
mocracy have come over to us, and Hill has a limitless 
field in which to exert his power before the people in op- 
posing the resistless career of the party. 

Joseph E. Brown has been reared in the mountain dis- 
trict of Cherokee, Georgia ; comes of the race of hardy, > 
honest and true men of the times. He has the largest 
and best balanced brain of all the young men of the State 
and scarcely has an equal in energy and perseverance. 

As orator, in the popular and appropriate understand- 
ing of the term, he is barely the equal of either of the 



70 MY CONTEMPOEAEIES.— 1857. 

five alluded to ; but as a debater lie is the inferior of none, 
and the superior of most of them. He is never caught 
unprepared, and never meets an emergency, however sud- 
den or great, which he cannot summon resources to meet. 
Never is a blow aimed at him or his cause, that he can- 
not ward off or parry. He was a lawyer at an ea,r\y pe- 
riod of life, and almost as soon, among the front and able 
lawyers of Cherokee, Georgia, feared and respected for his 
masterly powers. He is cautious, watchful, never tires, 
or leaves any means untried which promise success, and 
never leaves a fortress or battery of his adversary unas- 
sailed. 

An ardent Democrat from his boyhood, a leading mem- 
ber of the State Senate at twenty-eight years of age, pres- 
idential elector at thirty-two; active in all the popular 
elections and debates since he came to manhood, he pos- 
sessed the full confidence and challenged the full support 
of his party in the election for the judgeship, an office not 
political, against the popular incumbent, David Irwin, one 
of the ablest among the old judges and one of the purest 
and best men of the circuit. The bitterness and preju- 
dice growing out of the race, connected as it was with 
the political strife between' the Democratic and American 
parties, soon subsided after he entered on the discharge 
of official duties. Firm, impartial, vigilant, sober, moral, 
fearless in the administration of civil and criminal law, 
the people of both parties approve and sanction his elec- 
tion. Thorough in knowledge of the law and practice, 
and with abilities that would distinguish him in any court 
of the State, the lawyers pronounce him an able judge. 

There are four men in the State to whom the public 
mind turns as naturally, when the matter of intellectual 
greatness, moral and political power with reference to our 



MY CGNTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 7i 

own men, as it has done to the trio of Clay, Calhoun and 
Webster in the national firmament. These are Alexan- 
der H. Stephens and Robert Toombs of the Whigs, and 
Herschel V. Johnson and Howell Cobb of the Democrats. 

Cobb is the youngest, now forty-two years old. He 
was a college graduate, a lawyer, and the solicitor of his 
circuit before he was twenty-two years old ; was elected 
to Congress and served four consecutive terms and was 
speaker of the House, at the age of thirty-four. Differing 
from Governor Towns, Ex-governor Charles J. McDonald, 
Walter T. Colquitt, Herschel V. Johnson, and a majority 
of the leading Democrats upon the proper course for the 
Southern States to pursue, upon the great territorial 
slavery compromise of 1850, and agreeing with Berrien, 
Jenkins, Toombs, Stephens, and the majority of leading 
Whigs of the State who favored accepting it as a final ad- 
justment, he came home, advocated and defended the 
measure known as the omnibus bill, justified the national 
government in adopting it, and opposed all ideas of resist- 
ance to it on the part of the people of the slaveholding 
States. 

The General Assembly called a State convention of del- 
egates, to be elected by the people, to determine the course 
that Georgia would take on account of the passage of the 
bill by Congress; the points of which were: abolition of 
the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and a law to 
carry into effect the provisions of the Federal constitution 
for the restoration of fugitive slaves in the free States to 
their owners in the slave States; the admission of Cali- 
fornia as a State with an anti-slavery constitution, alleged 
to be fraudulent ; the organization of the territories of 
New Mexico and Utah, and the payment of $3,000,000 
to Texas to cede part of her slave territory to New Mexico. 



72 MY CONTEMPOKARIES.— 1857. 

Many of the old Whig and Democratic leaders accepted 
seats in the convention ; some of the old Whigs as South- 
ern Rights men, but the most of them adhering to the 
Union ; some of the old Democrats as Union men, but 
the majority as opposed to submitting without resentment 
or resistance in some form to the injustice and aggressive 
spirit of the North and the general, government toward 
the South and the institution of slavery. 

In this convention, Charles J. Jenkins was the Madison 
" come to judgment." He stood like a great, towering 
and impassable statue by the paths that seemed to lead 
to degradation and humility on the one side, or to disor- 
der and strife on the other. He rose above the stratum 
of the unconditional submissionists, and bowed the tall 
heads of the immediate resistance and secession men to 
the true level on which all could meet without dishonor 
and without revolution. The address and resolutions ac- 
cepting the settlement, and setting forth contingencies 
for resistance in the future, were adopted, and the conven- 
tion dissolved. But the issues that had called it into be- 
ing had dissolved for the present the organization of the 
national Democratic and Whig parties in the State. At 
the State election of 1851, the parties were Union, com- 
posed of the majority of old Whigs and minority of old 
Democrats ; and Southern Rights, composed of a majority 
of old Democrats and minority of old Whigs. Cobb ac- 
cepted the candidacy of the Union party, and Charles J. 
McDonald of the Southern Rights party, for governor. 

The contest was exciting and the discussions on the 
hustings were of the kind, and by the men, to arouse 
popular passion to its utmost height. McDonald was not 
a popular orator like Johnson and other Democratic lead- 
ers and Southern Rights Whigs. The incomparable Walter 



MY CONTEMPORAKIES.— 1857. 73 

T. Colquitt was still in the splendor of his oratorical 
powers. McDonald was supported by many of the most 
popular and gifted men of the State. 

Cobb made the canvass in person, and was supported 
by the matchless and irresistible eloquence and vast per- 
sonal influence of Toombs, Stephens, Berrien, Jenkins, 
and others. He was sustained by some of the old Dem- 
ocratic leaders, among the most popular of whom was 
John Henry Lumpkin. 

The people were excited and resentful, but loyal to the 
Union. At heart they were opposed to submission to 
wronsr, but saw no method of resistance but revolution 
and violence, to which they were unwilling to resort for 
existing causes. The discussion before them tended to 
strengthen this feeling; and the popular judgment in fa- 
vor of accepting and acquiescing in the compromise set- 
tlement. The cause of Cobb gathered strength, and that 
of McDonald declined ; and when the election came, the 
majority was overwhelming for Cobb. 

The Legislature elected at the same time was also over- 
whelmingly of the constitutional Union type, based on 
the acceptance of the settlement and preservation of the 
Union on the terms set forth by the convention known 
as the Georgia platform; and thus ended the dispute 
about resisting the government at this time. 

The termination of the issues that called the Union and 
Southern Rights parties into existence dissolved again 
their elements, and revived the old party organizations. 
The Union Democrats aligned themselves with their na- 
tional party for the presidential election of 1852; and 
the Whigs of the Union party rejoined their national 
allies. 

Governor Cobb soon found himself in antagonism to the 



74 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

leading men who had contributed most to place him in 
power, and in full accord and sympathy with the public 
men who had been his former political allies, but many 
of them vehement in opposition to him as a Union Demo- 
cratic leader. 

When the national bugles were sounded, summoning 
the clans to the national conventions, the old Whigs and 
old Democrats, having accomplished their joint aim on a 
temporary question, parted in peace. The old Democrats 
w^ho had learned to love their new allies, the Southern 
Rights Whigs, went with the few that still adhered, in the 
most perfect harmony and confidence, into the affiliation 
of the national Democracy. They had been in a minority 
as Southern Rights men, but soon found themselves in the 
majority as re-organized Democrats ; and found themselves 
elevated above their former triumphant Union Whig op- 
ponents by having a national and State government, both 
Democratic ; Franklin Pierce was president, and Howell 
Cobb governor. 

As the term drew to a close, Cobb had served the pur- 
poses of his candidacy and election. He preferred the 
national to the State service, and chose to retire volun- 
tarily from the executive office. 

The old Democrats of the State had now the opportu- 
nity to honor one of the men who had stood firmly for 
the cause of the South, and had gone down defiantly with 
the southern wing of the party, but who was then in ac- 
cord with all the principles and aims of the national 
party; and the banner was confided to Herschel Y. John- 
son. 

The old Whigs who had reunited with their national 
party in 1852, were disappointed in the result of their 
presidential nomination, General Winfield Scott. They 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 75 

were not satisfied with the party platform adopted, or 
General Scott's letter of acceptance. Taking the man 
and his antecedents, the platform of resolutions declaring 
the principles and policy of the national party, and the 
letter of the candidate, all into critical review, they re- 
garded the action of the party in national convention as 
giving effect to the anti-slavery and anti-southern procliv- 
ities of a large portion of the national Whigs. Those 
leaders, prominent for the presidential office, who were 
constitutional in political creed, regardless of their abstract 
opinions of slavery, had been thrown overboard ; and to 
their minds, as described and expressed by themselves, 
the national party was abolitionized, and unsafe for the 
South. 

Mr. Stephens, Mr. Toombs, Mr. Jenkins, who had been 
reared, and become leaders, and won their laurels in the 
battles of the party, supported and seconded by many of 
the old Whigs of this and other southern States, rebelled, 
and refused to support the candidate and the party as or- 
ganized and championed. 

The result was a vote expressive of their principles, to 
which, as Whigs, they had long adhered ; and also of 
their opposition to the national Democracy with Franklin 
Pierce as the candidate, and which was intended to be 
complimentary to the men for whom they voted — Daniel 
Webster, who died after he was nominated and before the 
election, and Charles J. Jenkins, the author of the Geor- 
gia platform. 

There were a few men in this and other Southern States 
too extreme in their- pro-slavery and sectional feelings 
and opinions to affiliate so soon with either of the national 
parties, w^lio cast their votes for George M. Troup of 
Georgia, and General John A. Quitman of Mississippi. 



76 MY CONTEMPOK ARIES.— 1857. 

But in 1853 the chasm that had stood open, and di- 
vided the Scott and the .Webster Whigs in this State had 
been closed, and the wounds inflicted on each other in 
the temporary breach had been healed ; and with great 
union and enthusiasm they rallied to the support of 
Charles J. Jenkins, for governor, against Herschel V. 
Johnson. 

The canvass was a manly and masterly one, as it was 
bound to be with such men for leaders, supported as they 
were by the able and popular men of their respective par- 
ties. Cobb, who had encountered the opposition of John- 
son while a Union candidate for governor, now espoused 
his cause as a Democratic candidate, and that of the party 
candidates for Congress and the Legislature. Mr. Ste- 
phens and Mr. Toombs gave to Jenkins a support intensi- 
fied by cordial agreement in principles and in aims, and 
a lifelong friendship for the man himself. The speakers 
and the press aligned themselves with the respective par- 
ties in all the ardor and zeal of ancient friendship and 
hatred. 

Herschel Y. Johnson, three years senior to Howell Cobb, 
then approaching forty-one years of age, was then 
nominated judge of the Ocmulgee circuit, though he never 
had been extensively engaged in the law practice prepar- 
atory to judicial duties. He had been a close and severe 
student, and from youth an ardent Democrat; and by his 
probity and virtue, his freedom from all that could arm 
an adversary with charges to assail his private character, 
and by his fearless and masterly eloquence in the debates 
of his party, like Toombs, Stephens and Cobb had leaped 
to the very front in early life. He had been made prom- 
inent for the office in 1845 when he was thirty-three years 
old and yielded voluntarily to Mathew Hall McAlister of 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 77 

Savannah, who was defeated in the election by the Whig 
candidate, then governor, George W. Crawford. Again, 
1847, he withdrew in favor of George W. Towns, who 
while in office appointed him United States senator, to fill 
the seat made vacant by the resignation of Mr. Colquitt, 
where he soon achieved a brilliant reputation as orator 
and debater. 

Johnson, to be known and appreciated, must be well 
known. We do not, in our approach to him, reach the 
warm strata and temperature of his heart and soul until 
we get close to him. Admiring his intellect, his solid 
judgment and honesty, enthused by his wonderful powers 
as a popular speaker, we do not feel invited, as by the air 
and manner of many of our public men, to come up and 
be a close, warm-hearted and confiding friend. This cause 
was felt strongly in his relations with the men of his own 
party. He has been conscious that they could not assail 
his private or public character or deny his great merit 
and valuable public services; that he was perhaps stand- 
ing in the way of many aspirants, hence did not have as 
cordial support for himself as he has uniformly rendered 
to others. 

But a man endowed as he was by nature, cultivated 
by study and learning, trained by many hard fought con- 
tests with the political foe, who is in sympathy with the 
Democratic masses, as he has ever been, needs no help 
from party leaders where he can be seen and heard. He 
never made the mistake of underrating his adversary. 
He had debated with all the Whig leaders ; knew their 
powers ; knew Jenkins to be a man of great ability and 
unassailable character. He assured me, at the hotel in 
Rome, when about going out to meet him the first time 
in debate after their respective nomination, that he feared 



78 MY CONTEMPOEAEIES.— 1857. 

his power, and dreaded the momentous contact with so 
able and pure a man. 

The crowd was large ; and the speeches in full keeping 
with the intellectual giants who had met. Johnson was 
more in sympathy with the masses upon the issues dis- 
cussed, the merits of the national Whig and Democratic 
parties. His style of enunciation was more exciting, and 
he had at least a partial triumph over his adversary, but 
such a triumph as wavered with the conflicting emotions 
of great masses of people, at that time not fully settled 
and determined in their final course. 

Johnson had been a Southern Rights Democrat, and 
was denounced as what was known as "fire-eater," and 
that class of men had been defeated and had grown into 
disfavor 5 but before being a " fire-eater " he had been a life- 
long national Democrat, and was then struggling to restore 
the power of the national Democracy in the State. Jen- 
kins, the candidate of the Whigs, had all this to confront, 
with all his prestige as a union man and restorer of peace 
between the sections as author of the Georgia platform. 
The interest in the canvass did not abate at the election, 
and the result was so close that all doubt and uncertainty 
w^ere only dispelled by an official count. 

The Democratic Legislature elected with Johnson had 
the election of a senator. The retiring Gov. Cobb and 
his defeated Democratic competitor, Charles J. McDonald, 
were again rivals in competition for the distinguishing 
honor, either of whom would have made an acceptable 
senator ; either could have been easily nominated in the 
party caucus but for the candidacy of the other, and as 
easily elected on joint ballot. 

The Southern Rights Democrats and the new allies, 
the Southern Rights Whigs, were willing to accept the 



MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 79 

aid and powerful influence of Cobb in the exciting and 
doubtful contest to restore the party to power, but not 
to bestow the coveted honor of the senatorship upon him. 

The caucus put forward McDonald as the candidate and 
Cobb retired, but all his friends in the Legislature did not 
vote for the nominee, and after protracted ballotings Mc- 
Donald finally failed to get a majority vote. The result 
was a compromise of the alienated factions on Hon. Alfred 
Iverson as senator. Cobb went back temporarily into 
private life, and at the next election in 1855 went back 
to the H'>use from his district. McDonald has been placed 
on the supreme court bench, for which his native capac- 
ities and large experience and learning eminently qualify 
him. 

The country, however, was not to remain at rest. The 
disengaged elements of the Whig party with the co-oper- 
ation of disaffected and dissatisfied Democrats organized a 
new party combining most of the tenets of the Whig 
party and based upon opposition to the right of foreign 
born citizens and members of the Catholic church to hold 
office. The fatal experiment was tried of a popular party 
organized to control the republican government of the 
Union and of the States in secret lodges, and concealing 
the identity of the membership from the public. It was 
first known and spoken of as the " Know Nothing " party, 
a cognomen assumed, and applied on account of the obli- 
gation of the members to " know nothing " when interro- 
gated as to the membership, the organization, and move- 
ments of the party. . This was a feature which when dis- 
covered and ventilated soon became more odious to the 
popular mind than the leaders and speakers were ever 
able to make Catholics and foreigners. 

When new and untried it was popular and captivating 



80 MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 

to men out of office and power. It promised reform of 
abuses and promotion to office, and bid fair to sweep the 
Democracy from their reign of authority. In this State it 
gained many Democrats but lost more largely of influen- 
tial Whigs. Mr. Stephens opposed it and fought all its 
principles and aims with a zeal and power peculiar to 
himself He was seconded by Mr. Toombs and many 
prominent old Whigs, who were for the time being called 
Anti-Know Nothings and Anti-Americans, as the new 
party when fully developed took the name of American 
party. 

But in the canvass of 1856 the Anti-Know Nothing 
Whigs all took open ground as Democrats in the support 
of Mr. Buchanan for the presidency. Perhaps no canvass 
in the State has ever exceeded that of 1855 in point of 
masterly discussion before the people. Gov. Johnson then 
a candidate for re-election against Hon. Garnett Andrews 
of Wilkes county, the nominee of the American party, 
and Basil H. Overby, the candidate of the Temperance 
Reform and Prohibition party, spoke all over the State. 
He was in full health and in the zenith of his oratorical 
glory. Cobb, who was a candidate in his own district 
where his election was assured, canvassed other parts of 
the State with the most withering orations to large mass 
meetings. Toombs brought all his powers to bear to en- 
lighten the public mind and beat down the new party. 
They were aided by many able speakers of both the old 
parties of less distinction. 

The old Whig leaders having refused to bear the stand- 
ard and colors of the new American, and having joined 
their ancient foes in the warfare upon the new bantling, 
were treated with strong resentment by their old party 
friends, who called out the remaining leaders, and fol- 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 81 

lowed them with great enthusiasm. Andrews, their can- 
didate, like McDonald, was not a popular orator, and such 
was the case with several of their candidates for Congress. 
Hence the services of those who could speak were in great 
demand. Dr. H. V. M. Miller, " Demosthenes of the moun- 
tains," exceeded if possible the past brilliancy and elo- 
quence that had given him the distinguishing title in his 
orations to large assemblages of the people. Benjamin 
H. Hill was a candidate for Congress, and, though defeated 
by Judge Warner, added to the brilliant reputation he 
had as lawyer that of one of the most powerful popular 
orators in the State. The admiration of his party men 
for him arose almost to idolatry. 

When the national canvass of 1856, which resulted in 
the election of Mr. Buchanan, as president, came on, the 
Democrats had defeated the Whigs and Americans in 
turn, and were in full power in the State, having a ma- 
jority of the votes of the State in the ranks and a major- 
ity of the popular old Whig leaders. They have had an 
easy victory so far as relates to the vote of Georgia, thouo-h 
a hard struggle in other parts of the Union. Mr, Bu- 
chanan goes into power with the highest prospects of a 
popular administration. 

In these elections of 1855 and 1856 the Democratic 
party opposed the proscriptive ideas of the Know Nothing 
or American party based on religious opinion and place of 
birth. The party was also in accord with the settlement 
by Congress of the subject of slavery in the Territorial 
government, as had been provided in the acts organizing 
Kansas and Nebraska territories, and enabling the people 
to form State governments repealing restrictions and 
leaving them to establish, protect, tolerate, or refuse and 
reject the institution of slavery without hindrance or 

6 



82 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

intervention by Congress or the Executive Government 
of the United States. The old issues of the Whig and 
Democratic parties had nearly all received a historic solu- 
tion ; and on these new ones the Whig leaders referred to 
could freely harmonize with the Democrats. Their own 
National party had drifted nearer and nearer the whirl- 
pool of abolition ; and they could have no alliance with it 
consistent with their views of constitutional relations be- 
tween the States and sections of the Union and fidelity 
to the slaveholding South. Hence their affiliation with 
National Democracy was patriotic and cordial. 

The four men under review, all perhaps nearly equal 
in many respects, are essentially different in others, and 
each in some particulars is greater than all the rest. Like 
the Dougherty, Lumpkin, Hansell, Warren, and Hill 
brothers, and Hugh Haralson, Mark A. Cooper, David J. 
Bailey, and many others, three of these are men of fine 
physical proportions and form, and will in this respect 
compare favorably with Webster, Hunter, and Brecken- 
ridge ; Toombs is physically the most faultless, and has only 
to be seen in any presence to attract attention and admi- 
ration ; Johnson is scarcely less perfect ; Cobb lacks height 
to make him the equal of either, and is more in physical 
mould like Silas Wright, and Thomas H. Benton. Ste- 
phens is the opposite to them all in every part of his physi- 
cal frame, and is as rare for his physical frailty as Toombs 
for physical perfection ; their confidence in each other 
and love borders on that of parental ardor in disinterest- 
edness. 

Stephens is encumbered by his pride of consistency; 
Toombs wears his as a loose summer gown, defies public 
opinion and criticism, despises his foes, and defies his 
friends if they differ from him, never dodges a bolt aimed 



MY CONTEMPOEARIES.— 1857. 83 

at him for want of consistency, but goes direct in search 
of the truth of the matter as now seen and understood, 
and prides as much in confuting his own former errors as 
those of other men. 

Stephens is formal in his reasoning processes, parlia- 
mentary in modes of procedure, and courteous to his ad- 
versaries ; lies in defiant manly coil like the rattlesnake, 
and lets all unintruding foes pass unharmed, but strikes 
with unerring aim and deadly fang whomsoever dares 
to assail him, his positions, or the party under his lead. 

Toombs defies time, place, and circumstance, as does 
the storm when the winds are unchained. Stephens has 
method, art, consistency, as well as vigor and correctness 
of thought; Toombs has giant strength combined with 
electric quickness and brevity. Under his magic brain 
power figures are conceived, born, and achieve their talis- 
manic efi'ect upon admiring men in a moment of time. 

All things considered,for pure intellectual power Toombs 
scarcely has a peer. And when they are combined 
with his wonderful power of utterance and daring cour- 
age they would make a powerful rival in any popular 
government. From early life they gave him prominence 
in the House, and now give him rank among the ablest 
men of the Senate. 

Stephens, with his bodily frailty and weakness and his 
brain power, possesses faculties of person of the rarest be- 
stowed on men. His voice is that of a woman in tone but 
of a man in extent before he is aroused. Then his pale feat- 
ures and emaciated frame without muscles invite sym- 
pathy and dread of physical collapse and failure, from 
strangers who have not heard him and witnessed his tri- 
umphs. The eye, that lies in somewhat melancholy ra- 
diance when at rest, like his placid and confident mind, 



84 MY CONTEMPOKAEIES.— 1857. 

begins with his increase of strength and warmth of body 
to glow with unearthly brilliancy. He gathers physical 
power as the surging of the awakening brain heaves 
against its barriers, and all the muscular, the fibrous, and 
nervous man rises from the ghost-like to the God-like. 
The voice glides from the combined tone of the flute and 
nightingale to the volume of a speaking angel of light 
and intelligence. His audience passes under the magic 
power of eloquence, and there he holds them at his will. 
The men who heard him on the hustings from 1843 to 
1856, who survive and see this florid picture, will pro- 
nounce it not overdrawn. But he enthused his own and 
enraged the opposing party. His friends loved and wor- 
shipped. His enemies admired his masterly powers, 
dreaded his fearful assaults, and hated his party for hav- 
ing such a formidable and tormenting leader. 

But many of the grandest flights of eloquence I have 
witnessed and felt were by Herschel Y. Johnson. He pos- 
sesses physical manhood, grandeur, and beauty like 
Toombs when aroused, and like Stephens his voice gains 
compass, power, and melody as he ascends on the wings of 
unchained fancy, and sways alike the judgment and emo- 
tions of men. His logic is not stronger, but not so brief 
as that of Toombs ; both like Stephens are masters of in- 
vective. Stephens and Toombs have anecdote ; Johnson 
and Cobb, like Douglas and Calhoun and Andrew Johnson, 
deal in earnest, persistent argument and reason that go 
direct to the mind, the heart, and sentiments of men. But 
Johnson's severity often drives his enemies into closer 
alliance against him. 

Cobb either has no such power, or, from superior wis- 
dom and more human kindness in his heart, never commits 
such mistakes for the cause and the party of which he 



MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 85 

is champion. Those who hear him, no matter whether 
of his or the opposing party, listen to him with or without 
their consent. They are chained by the presence of a 
great masterly mind and powerful person charged with 
the commission of pleading the cause of a common coun- 
try and a brotherhood of people, and guided by the 
promptings of sincerity and the love of truth, but with 
less music and power of voice, and grace of motion than 
some of the others ; a man who always rises above the 
tricks of the demagogue and the falsehood of the unscru- 
pulous panderer to popular ignorance and prejudice. 
While he treats his own cause with masterly power and 
unwavering fidelity, he treats his foe fairly. And this 
makes him perhaps the most effective and successful 
popular speaker of the four. While many may honestly 
differ from this judgment, none who are candid. will deny 
his great power over the people through his wonderful 
gifts as a popular speaker. 

Canvass of 1857. 

Since the chapter on " Contemporaries " was written, the 
parties have passed through a singularly organized and 
exciting canvass for the office of governor, and by oppo- 
site causes brought out two young men as candidates. 
The Whigs having been defeated in 1852, and again in 
1853, the party having been absorbed in this State by the 
new American party in 1855, and suffered defeat under 
that organization, had lost the more powerful and promi- 
nent party leaders in 1856, and hence was a hopeless 
minority at the time of the election of Prest. Buchanan. 
The result wa?!, the remaining old and prominent men of 
the party seemed not to desire a hopeless candidacy ; but 
the party, composed as it was of a large minority, and of a 



86 MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 

large volume of public intelligence, virtue, and patriotism, 
was not willing to abandon the organization, and yield 
to the dominant Democratic party without a manly strug- 
gle to regain power. 

Their convention summoned to the lead and placed the 
banner in the hands of the zealous, gifted and eloquent 
Benjamin H. Hill. 

The Democratic party being in the ascendency, and hav- 
ing a redundancy of men among the old leaders who cov- 
eted the honor of being Governor, was greatly troubled in 
convention to unite on any one of the aspiring candidates 
for a nomination, James Gardner, Henry G. Lamar, Wm. 
H. Stiles, Hiram Warner, and John Henry Lumpkin, and a 
number of outstanding men, ready to accept a candidacy, 
under the usage of compromising disputes among promi- 
nent men by the nomination of a man not known as a 
candidate. 

James Gardner was heralded by a long and brilliant 
reputation as editor of The Constitutionalist newspaper at 
Augusta, and had contributed largely for many years to 
the Democratic victories of the State by his power as a 
political writer ; had come in possession of fortune, and 
desired the honor of retiring under the eclat of a nomina- 
tion by his party, for the highest office in the gift of the 
State. He was seconded and supported actively and unan- 
imously, by the Democratic leaders in that part of the 
State. 

Henry G. Lamar is a man of ripe age, fair abilities, 
sterling integrity, high sense of personal honor, eminently 
patriotic, and sound in the Democratic faith, and true 
to the South, and the recipient of a powerful family influ- 
ence as well as that of his life-long personal friendships 
among the public men in his part of the State. 



MY CONTEMPORARIES.— 1857. 87 

Hiram Warner came from the North in early youth, 
identified himself with the State, and has been a steady 
and reliable Democrat from that time to the present. 
In early life he served with distinction in the Legislature, 
and later he served as judge of his circuit, three terms, 
and a term of eight years as judge of the supreme court, 
in addition to his long and successful career when out of 
office as a lawyer in western Georgia. He also served 
with great ability as representative in the last Congress. 
And at different periods of life has been recommended 
for this office. His character for ability, fidelity, conser- 
vatism, and personal honesty gave him many strong 
friends and supporters for this nomination. 

William H. Stiles had been a member of Congress on 
the general Democratic ticket before the State was laid 
off into congressional districts ; a minister to Austria four 
years, under President Polk, residing at Vienna, and is a 
man of erect form, pleasing person, courtly style, and 
polished manner of popular oratory ; a true and chivalrous 
representative of southern Democracy, supported by the 
elegant and refined people of Savannah. 

John Henry, nephew to Wilson and Joseph Henry 
Lumpkin, son of an honest primitive Baptist preacher, 
George Lumpkin, came to Cherokee, Georgia, from Ogle- 
thorpe County, when young. Has been solicitor and 
judge of his circuit, and several times member of Con- 
gress, and has long been a Democratic leader of great 
personal cleverness and popularity in this part of the 
State. And in this contest for a nomination to the office, 
which, above all others, he has long coveted, he was the 
choice of this part of the State, with many warm support- 
ers in other sections. 

While any one of them would have been an acceptable 



88 MY CONTEMPORAEIES.— 1857. 

man to the people, the antagonisms between their friends 
in the convention were so strong as to prevent the nom- 
ination of either, and as a sequence to defeat them all. 
Tt resulted after a long session, and repeated fruitless bal- 
lotings, in throwing all overboard, and nominating by 
acclamation, upon the recommendation of a special select 
committee, the present Governor of Georgia, 

Joseph Emerson Bkown, 

of whom my purpose to prosecute the history of the State 
will impose the most pleasant duty to write more at large. 

The friends and adherents of the defeated candidates, 
notwithstanding the evidences of discontent that at first 
gave encouragement to the opposition party under Mr. 
Hill, in the course of the canvass gradually yielded to Mr. 
Brown their cordial and united support, and the party 
of Mr. Hill, the Whig, American, or opposition party as it 
is called, voted for him as enthusiastically even in the face 
of admitted numerical strength in the Democratic ranks. 

The canvass was a heavy one for the candidates, and 
was conducted with great zeal and ability. Hill with in- 
cisive tactics, his stirring and impressive eloquence, ap- 
pealed to the prejudices and the solidifying sentiments 
of his own party with a resume of its contests and achieve- 
ments, and to the supposed disaflfecting elements of the 
Democracy; arraigned the party which had been in 
power in the Union and in the State upon the current 
newspaper charges of maladministration and abuse of 
power and discretion. The administration of the Western 
& Atlantic railroad was reviewed with terrible scathing, 
because it was alleged that it had been used for party 
purposes and to promote favorites to the waste of public 
finances and the injury of the State. 



MY CONTEMPORAKIES.— 1857. 89 

Brown with his perseverance, calmness, composure, and 
confidence as well as moral and physical courage, in his 
convincing reason and powerful argumentation addressed 
the assembled masses in every part of the State, and tri- 
umphantly defended the party who had committed the 
banner to his hand to lead. 

He defended the party with which he had been identi- 
fied from his childhood, and whose principles were de- 
rived from and based upon the constitution itself — the 
party of a proud American ancestry, the projectors of 
Constitutional Liberty and the founders of Republican 
Government and makers of the Constitution itself — a 
party whose administrations had been the chief source of 
prosperity and development of a great country — the 
nursery and school of statesmen, and the champion of 
political justice and equality, and whose history was that 
of unrivalled progress and development, and under 
whose rule the United States had been the admiration of 
the world abroad, and had drawn contributions of people, 
of arts, science, and learning as well as of wealth, from 
all parts of the globe. A party whose triumphs w^ere not 
of force or violence, but results of reason and intelligence, 
the force and effect of the love of truth and justice, ,and 
enlightened public opinion. 

His nomination was the defeat of the people's favorites 
in the diJfferent parts of the State where he was, as well 
as being a young man for so high a position, a personal 
stranger to the masses of the people. That the ardent 
friends of all the defeated aspirants should, before the 
election, yield in his favor, and join in full accord and give 
him ar cordial and enthusiastic support, based on the 
sanction and conviction that he was the strongest as well 
as most suitable man of them all, is one of the features of 



90 MY CONTEMPOEAEIES.— 1857. 

the politics of this State which can only be explained on 
the hypothesis that in the newly elected and installed, 
and comparatively youthful, Governor the people have 
discovered a man of destiny. 



CHAPTER II. 
Governor Joseph E. Brown's Early Life. 

His rapid rise from the walks of humble private life, 
obstructed by the disabilities of poverty, and the want of ^ 
early scholastic advantages which many of his contem- | 
poraries enjoyed, propelled by the self-sustaining energy ', 
of a naturally great mind to the highest honor in the i 
gift of the State at the age of thirty-six years, invests his \ 
personal history with an interest to the people of this and ^ 
future generations, and with a priceless value to mankind. 
Many men in this State have risen rapidly, and come to 
high official honors in early middle life. But they were 
propelled by early advantages and propitious surround- 
ings, and were obstructed by far less competition in other 
able and popular men. 

Cobb rose as rapidly, and began earlier in life to receive 
public honors than Brown. But he grew up in the heart 
of the State, enjoyed the training of her masters of learn- 
ing in Franklin College at Athens, came up in the very 
centre of political power and influence, and was heralded 
by powerful family prestige, and sustained by worldly 
fortune. Brown comes from the mountain district, the 
remote interior of the State, far from railroads and tele- 
graphs, and schools of learning, and the boasted intellect- ' 
ual centres, and as far from political cabals and juntos. 
His fortunes have not been speeded or his morals diluted 
by the improvements of metropolitan life and society, 
nor does he share too largely the sympathy of the older 



92 GOY. JOSEPH E. BROWK'S EARLY LIFE. 

men supplanted or postponed by his promotion and ele- 
vation. He enters on his high office with but few political 
props to uphold, and fewer dead weights to pull him down. 
He is a comparatively frail man in body; may die 
( young. Hence this note of his physique. He is five 
{ feet ten inches in height, and weighs about one hundred 
j and thirty-five pounds ; he will not compare with Toombs 
i and Johnson in splendor of personal outline, or with Mark 
A. Cooper, and John C. Breckenridge, in stately and 
imposing height and form, and strength of body ; and still 
he is further removed from the pattern of Alexander H. 
Stephens. 

His complexion is fair, though slightly swarthy, or 
wanting in the ruddy, fresh glow of the young men of 
i active life, physical strength, and health. The hair and 
i beard are black, the latter of reasonable luxuriance, and 
the former indicating a slight want of richness and depth 
of soil. The head is unusually large, and seems to balance 
w^ell on the vertebral column ; the brow expansive and in- 
dicating in its conformation a native powerful mental organ- 
ization with uncommon perceptive and reasoning faculties ; 
the brain within seems never to tire, but is capable of pow- 
erful and prolonged exertion ; the features are full and reg- 
ular, with a cheek, chin, and nose in proportion with the 
high and well-rounded forehead ; large square mouth and 
thick lips; eyes of deep, dark blue when in repose, and radi- 
ant under mental effort and excitement; his chest is too 
thin for great strength of lungs ; he is not fitted for loud 
and boisterous declamation ; his throat is weak, and subject 
j to irritation and disorder; his voice is loud and smooth in 
tone, distinct and clear in pronunciation, which can be well 
understood to the extent of the voice itself. But it can- 
not be extended like that of Hill, Johnson, and Stephens. 



GOV. JOSEPH E. BEOWN'S EARLY LIFE. 93 

Hence he is never very loud or vehement, even in the 
most important speeches, but is always self-possessed, 
self-reliant, confident, and deliberate. He is earnest and 
emphatic in conversation, but never boisterous or noisy, 
and never emphasizes his ideas* with oaths or expletive 
adjectives. Never deals in fiction or fancy in conveying 
his thoughts to his hearers, but uses facts and reason, and 
the most exhaustive argumentation, in the plainest, 
and most approved English words. With the air of slow J 
and stately dignity, he has no military dash in his walk ; 
and physical motions. Nothing of the swell of the nabob, I 
or dainty toilet of the fop; and nothing of the coarse, care- 
less, and ruffian manner of the hoosier. Genteel, but not . 
showy ; neat, but not gaudy, is his style of dress and 
address. 

But few, perhaps, will be able, by following his exam- 
ple in pursuit of public honors, to approximate his bril- 
liant success. But there are points to be noted in his 
personal habits, that all the world may profit by follow- 
ing. He abstains habitually and totally from all intoxica- J 
ting drinks, and loathes and rejects tobacco in all its\ 
forms and uses. And in my intimate and cordial friendly . 
relations with him in private life, I have never heard him f 
lise a profane oath, or relate an obscene or vulgar anec- 
dote. 

In religion he is also a decided character, and is as firm i 
and pronounced a Baptist in church relations, as he is a ( 
Democrat in politics. It is, however, a noteworthy fea- 
ture of the religion of the churches, and the politics of 
this State, that they never mix much with each other. 

The politicians on their canvasses are not over-zealous 
in religion ; and the men of the church in turn forget or 
disregard its fellowship when they come to vote in party 



94 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EAELY LIFE. 

elections. The Christians of the period love the cause of 
religion, and adhere strongly to their respective churches 
when in the prosperous or revival state, and for all the 
legitimate and scriptural purposes of their professions ; 
but. when the tide of politics arises they naturally drift, 
every man with his own party. 

Brown is a steady and consistent Baptist — the line of 
distinction is as clear between Baptists and Methodists for 
all religious purposes, as between Democrats and Whigs 
for political purposes. The members of opposing churches 
respect each other as Christian professors, and those of 
opposing parties respect each other as citizens of a com- 
mon government, while they stand aloof and act in their 
separate organizations. Hill is a decided Methodist, but 
was enthusiastically supported by all good Baptist whigs, 
as Brown was by all good Methodist democrats. It is, 
moreover, a very marked characteristic with both parties, 
and exemplified by the public officers of both, whether 
political, judicial, or ministerial, that in the discharge of 
official duty they are sternly impartial between all the 
religious denominations. 

1879. 

After the eventful period of twenty-two years — when 
the then youthful statesman has grown gray, and his 
career has been crowned with the most eminent suc- 
cess — in public administration, so far as it was in the 
power of the largest measure of abilities and the most 
sleepless energy and perseverance to save the State from 
disaster, and in the management of his own private fort- 
une, as well as the public enterprises in which his business 
capabilities have been employed, his life becomes invested 
with an interest and value to mankind whenever and 



GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 95 

wherever genius and talent struggle with privations and 
difficulties, and when masterly abilities and moral courage 
attempt to confront and repress wrong and correct abuses ; 
and where sagacity and forecast, almost prophetic, by 
bold and daring originality, seek to wield the powers of 
government in the interest and general improvement and 
advantage of the people, instead of burdening them for 
selfish and ambitious purposes. 

Even the childhood and youth of a man whose grand 
thoughts resulted in original plans for the general good, 
but many of which were thwarted or retarded by de- 
structive war, to be utilized and adopted by his succes- 
sors, have an example so moral and sublime as to claim 
the minute attention of aspiring young men in all countries. 

His paternal ancestors were Scotch-Irish, his immediate 
ancestor the descendant of emigrants, of honorable descent, 
to Virginia upwards of a century ago. Like Crawford, 
Forsyth, and many others who have adorned the State in 
high positions, the ancestry was Virginian. The grand- 
father, Joseph Brown, was a whig rebel, and took active 
part in the war for independence. The father, Mackey 
Brown, was a native of South Carolina, to which State 
the ancestors had removed. In early life he removed 
and became a citizen of Tennessee where he joined the 
army in the brigade of General Carroll and served under 
General Jackson in the campaign of New Orleans. There 
was a consequent family admiration of Jackson as a hero 
and statesman. 

His mother's maiden name was Sally Rice, who was 
also of Virginian ancestry. The Rice family having be- 
fore emigrated to Tennessee, Mackey Brown and Sally 
Rice were married and resided in that State until a short 
time before the birth of Joseph Emerson, which took 



96 GOV. JOSEPH E. BEOWN'S EAELY LIFE. 

place on the 15th day of April, 1821, in Pickens district, 
South Carolina, whither the parents had removed. Dur- 
ing his boyhood they removed to and settled in Union 
county, which is in north-eastern Georgia. It was in that 
remote mountain home, under the control of and in duti- 
ful and affectionate obedience to steady religious Baptist 
parents, that he passed his early youth. He labored in 
the field and attended stock to aid in the family support 
until he was nineteen years of age. He had been sent to 
the country schools, had learned to read and write, and 
had acquired some knowledge of arithmetic and the ele- 
mentary branches of ordinary education. 

It was only a spark of knowledge that struck the tin- 
der of a great brain in the formative state ; but the igni- 
tion took place, and the flame, which no adverse fortune 
nor accumulation of discouraging circumstances could 
extinguish, began to burn and brighten and to irradiate 
its light and heat. The world has witnessed the rapid rise 
and brilliant career of the mountain boy in the proudest 
position in the gift of a great and appreciative people. 

The labored steps of genius without fortune by which 
he began to climb the rugged hill to fame and power, 
though humble in themselves, are sublime in moral grand- 
eur, and are heralds of hope and encouragement to mind 
with energy and perseverance in all lands and all ages to 
come. 

He heard of Calhoun Academy in Anderson district, 
South Carolina, under Wesley Leverett, a distinguished 
teacher, and seeing the light as its rays came from the 
east, he planned the grand entqrprise of reaching and 
passing a year in that school. He had no exchequer, 
never had revelled on cash, the gift of parental bounty, or 
from any source whatever ; never had clothing except the 



GOV. JOSEPH E. BKOWN'S EAELY LIFE. 97 

common but neat domestic manufacture, had no horse of 
his own to ride over the long mountain road to Anderson, 
had no money to pay for board and tuition after he should 
reach the place. His worldly estate consisted of a yoke 
of steers. 

He set out with the oxen with his younger brother / 
James, now an eminent lawyer at Canton, to ride alter- \ 
nately his father's plow-horse and drive the steers, and I 
to carry back the horse after the main part of the jour- . 
ney was completed — a distance of about one hundred and 
thirty miles. 

He sold his steers after arrival for eight months' board, [ 
entered the school and went in debt for tuition. There ) 
was no danger in trusting him then, and there has never 
been since. 

His earnest manner gained him credit, his energy and 
enterprise enabled him to meet its demands promptly. 
At the end of his board-contract he returned to Union 
County, Georgia, and taught a three months' school, with \ 
the proceeds of which he paid his tuition-debt and had 
some money left to apply to the expenses of another 
term. 

He returned to Carolina and spent two years of close i 
hard study, on credit mainly for board and tuition, in the 1 
course of which he made such advances in the languages ) 
and mathematics as to have been prepared if he had pos- 
sessed the means to pay the expense to enter an advanced 
college class. He returned to Georgia, went to Canton, 
the county seat of Cherokee County, and took charge of ( 
the town academy as teacher in January, 1844, in debt for 
two years preceding board and tuition, with six scholars 
which soon increased to sixty ; while teaching this school 
he read law of nights and Saturdays without an instructor j 



98 GOV. JOSEPH E. BEOWN'S EARLY LIFE. 

and at the end of the year he returned and paid off his 
South Carolina debt. 

In 1845 he pursued the study of law with a view to its 
practice, and at the same time earned his board by teach- 
ing the children of Dr. John W. Lewis. In August of 
that year, after a critical public examination which he sus- 
tained with unsurpassed promptness and correctness, he 
was admitted to practise in the courts. 

Dr. Lewis, who had observed the immense promise of 
young Brown, and comprehended the extraordinary mind 
. with which nature had endowed him, and the sleepless 
I energy with which he was pressing it to development 
\ and practical use, loaned him the money to pay the ex- 
pense and attend the law school at Yale College, where 
I he entered in October, 1845. Having the advantage of 
a previous course of thorough and severe study of law he 
was enabled to keep up with his law classes, and also found 
time to take a liberal literary course. Having graduated 
in 1846 he returned to Canton and entered into practice 
which soon became extensive and lucrative. 

Eleven years later as the victorious leader of the great 
Democratic party of Georgia he was installed into the 
office of chief magistracy with the honors that crowned a 
success brought about by native and cultivated ability 
and reached without cause of reproach. 

In 1847 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Joseph 
Grisham, a Baptist clergyman of South Carolina, who 
has been among the most devoted of wives as she is one 
of the noblest and best of women ; she has been constantly 
by his side in all his arduous duties with aid in toil and 
wise counsel in times of trial and embarrassment, constant 
and devoted in affection and so just and generous, so 
noble and self-sacrificing, as well as self-possessed and 



GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 99 

prudent, even under strong provocation in ill-natured pub- 
lic criticism, as to have held and maintained the universal 
esteem and high respect of all parties, the foes as well as 
the friends of her distinguished, often assailed and much 
abused husband. 

It is difficult for even a great man to continue to act 
wisely without a true and devoted wife to aid him in coun- 
sel and share his cares and toils. Such has been the good 
fortune of Gov. Brown from early manhood to the present. 

They have been blessed in their offspring as well as 
domestic worldly success and prosperity. Julius L. Brown, 
the elder son, a graduate of the State University of Geor- 
gia and Cambridge Law school, has become promiiient in 
the legal profession ; Joseph M. Brown who inherited 
much of the father's intellect, educated for the same pro- 
fession, but on account of premonitions of physical weak- 
ness has changed his purposes and become a railroad man ; 
Elijah A. and Charles M. Brown* are inclined to the noble 
calling of agriculture ; George M. the youngest child is 
yet a school boy ; Mary V. is the wife of Dr. E. L. Con- 
nally of Atlanta, and Sallie is not yet grown. 

But all has not been continued bliss in this happy 
household. There was an idol taken away, where mem- 
ory still lingers, in all the freshness it had, when the 
handmaid and the herald of parental and paternal grief — 
grief that bowed low the strong head of the father, and 
embalmed the true mother's heart. Bright in childhood, 
as the diamond, newly cut from the imbedded secrecy of 
the untold past ages and centuries, were his mind and 
soul, encased as they were, in a casket made frail by 
early and incurable spinal disease ; and by the continued 
ravages of which it was prevented from growth, develop- 

* Since this was written Charles II. Brown has died, as hereafter stated. 



100 GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 

ment, and vigor, endowed as he was with genius, whose 
rays sparkled, during his brief life, through the sombre 
clouds of pain and unrest, he passed like a meteor from 
out of sight of men. 

This was Franklin Pierce Brown, whose mortal remains 
repose beneath a towering, beautifully surmounted, and 
ornamented monument of Carrara marble, executed in 
Italy, in the Oakland cemetery at Atlanta, where he was 
laid in 1871, at the age of eighteen years. A child 
almost in frame, he was a pre-conscious, self-educated 
man in mind, in heart, and m all the attributes that 
endeared him to his kindred, and to his own and his par- 
ents' friends. His private library, as he read and mas- 
tered the books, enlarged with the growth of his mind, 
the expansion of his judgment, and cultivation of his 
affections and taste, and at his early death, it embraced 
one hundred volumes. The inscription on his monument 
is from a voluntary tribute to his memory, from Alex- 
ander H. Stephens : " Such a prodigy of intellect and 
virtue, in a body so frail, I never met, in any other human 
form, and never expect to if I live a thousand years." 

There are, perhaps, but few, if any, of the wives of 
public men of this age who can be compared with Mrs. 
Brown as to the traits of mind, and heart, and the disposi- 
tion and habits which render a wife, in truth and reality, 
a helpmate to her husband, and which rendered her the 
equal of her husband in many respects. 

Instead of wasting his estate by extravagance and use- 
less display, she has been a model of household and domes- 
tic ecjnomy. Instead of leading an idle life, devoted to 
pleasure and gayety, as most women do, whose husbands 
have distinguished them, she has been devoted to toil and 
industry, and has scarcely been the inferior of her hus- 



GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EAELY LIFE. 101 

band in the wonderful power he possesses of endurance 
of protracted mental and physical labor and exertion. 

It should be recorded to encourage the wives of all 
public men, that Mrs. Brown, in addition to the care of 
her children and household duties, with her own hand, 
copied for the printer the original manuscripts, difficult 
for most people to read, of all the messages and public 
documents of the Governor while in office. And in like 
manner all his discussions and opinions, as chief justice of 
the supreme court of Georgia ; and in addition, with the 
aid of the lamented and life-long afflicted son, Franklin 
Pierce Brown, kept a complete file in scrap-books of the 
public criticisms and comments and commendations on 
the Governor, and most of the public documents from his 
early life to the present ; which, since the destruction of 
public records and files by the Federal cavalry at Milledge- 
ville, have greatly facilitated the writer in this work. 

The student of biography may be curious to know by 
what kind of ladder he ascended from such lowly begin- 
nings to so high a station and rank, and with such extraor- 
dinary rapidity. The answer to the inquiry is, a ladder 
he built as he ascended. It was based on the solid foun- 
dation of brain, backbone, and heart ; mind, heroic endur- 
ance and irrepressible perseverance and energy, and 
honest purpose. The warmth of his patriotism, and 
sympathy with the masses of the people of all classes, and 
his fearless advocacy of the right, melted and moulded 
the material of its rounds, in rapid succession, by which 
he reached the height, and stood firmly planted on the 
foundation of self-sustaining ability and wisdom. 

He was accustomed to attend courts, give unremitted 
attention to, and takes notes of all the proceedings 
on, legal questions. If he was counsel, he went in pre- 



102 GOY. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EAELY LIFE. 

pared on facts and law ; if he was not counsel, in the case 
on trial, he was a laborious student of law in its applica- 
tion to the affairs of men, and therefore deeply interested 
in every cause that came to be tried by the courts He 
had neither disposition nor time to loiter and dissipate, or 
associate with the idle and vicious. 

His first election to public office was in 1849, when 
nominated by the Democrats of the forty-first senatorial 
district, composed of Cobb and Cherokee counties ; when, 
after encountering strong popular opposition on account 
of his temperance opinions and practices, and his stubborn 
and persistent refusal to carry his election by buying 
whiskey and treating voters, he was elected by a large 
majority, and entered the senate under the administra- 
tion of George W. Towns, amid a splendid array of legis- 
lative talent and worth. Towns had been re-elected over 
Hon. E. Y. Hill by a doubtful struggle, and the parties 
were closely matched, and nearly equally divided in the 
legislature. In the Senate, were Andrew J. Miller, Blount 
C. Ferrell, Peter E. Love, Allen E. Cochran, William W. 
Clayton, Thomas Purse, Richard H. Clark, William B. 
Wofibrd, John D. Stell, David J. Bailey, Charles Murphy, 
Edward D. Chisolm, James M. Spurlock. In the House 
were Linton Stephens, Lucius J. Gartrell, Edmund H. 
Worrell, William T. Wofford, John A. Jones, A. T. 
Mclntyre, Charles J. Jenkins, Alexander McDugald, Rob- 
ert P. Trippe, Randolph Spaulding, James N. Ramsey, 
Thomas C. Howard, John W. Anderson, George P. Harri- 
son, A. D. Shackelford, A. H. Kenan, Winslow J. Lawton. 
There were others of merit in both Houses. 

The State being in the rapid stage of development, 
her Legislature was a body of the first significance and 
importance ; and summoned the best men of the respec- 



GOY. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 103 

tive parties. The questions before this body were well 
calculated to draw out and utilize the wisdom of the elder, 
and develop the capacities of the younger members of 
the Houses, the men of mark and merit. It is a truth, 
however, that a large majority of this, as other preced- 
ing Legislatures, was of men not constituted by natural 
endowments or acquired abilities for the high and respon- 
sible duties of legislators. Young Brown was placed on 
three important standing committees of the Senate ; 
among them the committee on the judiciary. 

The questions of revenue, finance, and taxation, were 
prominent, and summoned the highest talent of both par- 
ties. There was a public debt of upwards of $1,800,000, 
which had been created in great part by the losses and 
the complications of the State through the State Central 
Bank, and the construction of the Western & Atlantic 
Railroad. 

The theory of equalizing the burdens of government 
that were increasing with its enterprises, and consequent 
expenses, by the equitable system of ad valorem taxa- 
tion, had been favored by Gov. Crawford. So far as relates 
to real estate, it was more strongly and forcibly urged by 
Gov Towns, on the general theory of placing all taxable 
property on the basis of paying taxes to support govern- 
ment according to value. The idea that the owner of a 
slave-child, or invalid, or of small value, should pay as 
much tax, on that slave, as the owner of a slave of large 
value, and a like theory as to other property, and assets, 
tended to bring the system of "specific taxes," into dis- 
favor, and to inaugurate that of taxing values instead of 
specified property. 

The Western & Atlantic railroad, the^B|t enterprise 
of the kind by any Southern State, was bemgj^ompleted. 

vm 



104 GOV. JOSEPH E. BEOWN'S EAELY LIFE. 

The subject of a suitable organization and system of laws 
for its government and management, so as to make it 
available as a great channel of inland transportation, and 
the development of the country, as was originally in- 
tended, and a source of revenue to the State after paying 
the debts contracted for construction, and at the same 
time guard against the corrupting influences of so large a 
money collecting and disbursing institution, was one of 
momentous importance. 

The administration and government, and financial 
affairs of the State penitentiary ; the asylums of the luna- 
tics, and deaf and dumb; the public land system; the 
disputed boundary with Florida ; the militia laws, and 
means of the protection of the State ; the purity of elec- 
tions; salaries of public officers ; the supreme court; edu- 
cation, and the threatening relations of the people of the 
North toward the South on the slavery question, were 
under severe and critical review in this Legislature, and 
all afforded ample field for the intellectual powers of Mr. 
Brown and his able contemporaries of the Senate and 
House. 

Gov. Towns, who was of the class called '' hot spurs," 
and afterward "fire-eaters," brought the subject of fed- 
eral relations before the Assembly, stating in strong 
terms his views of the dangers to the South growing out 
of anti-slavery aggressions by the Northern people. It 
was in this Legislature that the measure was adopted 
which divided the Democratic and Whig parties up to 
1852. The call of a convention of the State to consider 
her course on account of the alleged fraudulent organiza- 
tion of the Territory of California into a State govern- 
ment, with a constitution prohibiting slavery, and the 
admission of the State into the Union by Congress : the 



GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EAELY LIFE. 105 

debates on this question and matters germane to it 
had the effect to develop different and conflicting opin- 
ions between Democrats and between Whigs in reference 
to the preservation of the Federal Union ; and the integ- 
rity of the States and the protection to the constitutional 
rights of the South in the peculiar institution of slavery. 
They differed as to the value and importance of the Union, 
while all were Union men ; they differed also as to the 
extent of the aggressive spirit against slavery and the 
imminence of the danger, while they were all State Rights 
and Southern Rights men. The result was an explosion 
and disbanding of party organizations for the time being. 

In these discussions, and those which followed before 
the people, Mr. Brown, while not a Disunionist or Seces- 
sionist, as many of the Southern Rights men were, was 
firmly and decidedly in favor of such a course as might 
tend to arrest aggression and preserve the Union and 
Constitution by providing safeguards, or enforcing those 
we had, for the rights of the States, and the honor and 
interest of the slaveholding people of the South. 

But, as we have seen, the wing of Democracy with 
which he acted was largely in the minority when the 
people came to elect delegates to the convention, and in 
the subsequent election of Cobb over McDonald for gov- 
ernor, with a strong Union legislature which elected Mr. 
Toombs in the place of Mr. Berrien to the United States 
Senate. But, as we have seen, upon the settlement of 
the disputed issues the local and temporary parties 
organized on them were disbanded, the old Whig and 
Democratic parties re-organized, and the Southern Rights 
Democrats passed out from under the cloud of defeat and 
minority. 

In the organization of the Democratic forces of the 



106 GOV. JOSEPH E. BEOWN'S EAELY LIFE. 

State for the decisive canvass between the national Whigs 
and Democrats in the Union, and to determine the mooted 
and vexed question as to the ascendency and power of 
the one or the other, under the lead of Winfield Scott 
and of Franklin Pierce, the prominence, ability, and in- 
fluence of Brown caused him to be placed upon the Demo- 
cratic electoral ticket for the 5th congressional district of 
the State, which after a successful canvass was carried for 
himself and the Pierce electors by an overwhelming and 
increased majority. 

I have elsewhere alluded to his candidacy and election 
over Hon. David Irwin, the incumbent judge of the Blue 
Ridge circuit in 1855, and his brilliant and able admin- 
istration for the two years ensuing, which position he held 
a1^ the time the State Democratic convention nominated 
him for governor. 

The wisdom of the State has fluctuated much upon the 
proper mode of appointing judges of the superior court. 
From time out of mind they had been elected by the 
General Assembly on joint ballot ; but by Act of 1852, re- 
enacted in 1854, the State constitution was so changed as 
to give their election to the people. This contest be- 
tween Brown and Irwin was a trial in that, as there was 
in other circuits of the new system, which in the course 
of a few years proved to be unsatisfactory on account of 
the repugnance of the people to bringing their candidate 
to electioneer personally for votes, and the supposed de- 
moralizing tendency upon the judges when after a suc- 
cessful canvass they have to preside over friends and foes 
and to pass judgment upon the legal rights of those who 
supported, as well as those who voted against them. In 
many parts of the State it had the appearance of tending 
to evil. 



GOV. JOSEPH E. BROWN'S EARLY LIFE. 107 

The next change was to clothe the governor with the 
power to nominate, and the senate to confirm or reject — 
as in tiie case of appointing judges of the supreme court 
— which system was in force until 1877, when the con- 
stitutional convention of that year so altered the constitu- 
tion as to return to the original system of electing by the 
Legislature, except that instead of a vote by ballot as 
formerly, the method is to vote viva voce. 

The method last abandoned was intended to remove 
the appointment from all the corrupting influences of 
popular elections ; but it was found to be a source of dis- 
satisfaction because of the vast power it placed in the 
hands of the governor, and the impossibility of the ap- 
pointment of any man, however well suited or however 
much desired by the people, who could not in some way 
procure a nomination by him. 



CHAPTER III. 

Government of Georgia under Joseph E. Brown. 

This embraces the period from his inauguration in 
November, 1857, up to the commencement of, and during 
the whole of the late war, to the final collapse of the con- 
federacy, and to the suspension of civil authority in the 
State, and his arrest and confinement under the military 
authority of the United States in the year 1865, having 
been four times elected by the people of the State, and 
by large and increased popular majorities. In 1859 the 
opposition nominated the Hon. Warren Akin of Bartow 
county, who canvassed the State with great zeal and 
ability. But it was in the face of increased and solidified 
confidence of the people in and largely widened and in- 
tensified popularity of the incumbent ; and Mr. Akin, as 
would any other man of either party in the State, suffered 
defeat. 

In 1861, after the war was fully opened on a large 
scale, they nominated the Hon. Eugenius A. Nesbit, a 
man of great ability, and purity, and of large personal 
popularity, who, like Brown, had thoroughly and heartily 
joined in the movement, and cast his lot with the fortunes 
of the new confederacy. But he, like Akin, suffered de- 
feat by a very large majority. 

In 1863, when the fatal crisis of the bloody struggle 
was being passed, and when the murmurings of discon- 
tent were beginning to be heard, and it was supposed 
that the somewhat silent voice, and unorganized senti- 



GEORGIA. UJ^DER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 109 

ment of opposition to the war in its inception, and espe- 
cially to its continuance, and the strong desire for an 
adjustment, and peace, would find expression at the bal- 
lot-box, the Hon. Joshua Hill was brought out as a 
candidate. He was an acknowledged Union man. An 
old Whig with strong party prejudices, and great personal 
integrity, decision, moral courage and firmness, who at 
the time of secession represented his district in Congress, 
and refusing to acknowledge the validity of the ordinance 
of secession, did not retire with the Georgia delegation from 
Congress, but formally resigned his seat, thus acknowledg- 
ing the authority of the Federal government over a repre- 
sentative of Georgia in Congress. It being impracticable 
to defeat Brown by the popular vote, and with a view to 
securing the election to the General Assembly, a third can- 
didate was brought out. There was a sentiment of oppo- 
sition to Brown among men, as much opposed to Hill as 
he was, growing out of his opposition to the policy of 
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, which will 
claim particular attention in another part of this volume. 
This opposition put forward as a third candidate a man of 
fair ability, and great excellence and purity of private 
character, and a true patriot ; the Hon. T. M. Furlow of 
Sumter county, a strong Secessionist, But both these able 
and popular men, like Benjamin H. Hill, Warren Akin, 
and Judge Nesbit, were doomed to overwhelming defeat, 
by a majority required by the State constitution over 
both competitors. It is a marked feature in this election, 
that the Georgia troops in the army, by act of the 
Legislature, held elections in their camps and voted, in the 
face of, and defiance to, the complaints of the confederate 
administration and authorities against the course Brown 
had pursued, in maintaining, even in war, the constitu- 



110 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

tion of the Confederacy, and the rights of the soldiers, as 
well as people. The soldiers of this State voted for Brown 
bj large majorities. 

The history of Georgia in this period is, to a large ex- 
tent, a continuation of the history of her Governor, which 
naturally divides itself into the civil and military admin- 
istrations. 

Civil Administration of Gov. Brown. 

Entering upon the duties of his office when really a 
young man for the position, and when he was regarded 
and classed among the young men of the State, as the 
successor of a line of able and distinguished men, such as 
Lumpkin, Schley, Gilmer, McDonald, Crawford, Towns, 
Cobb, and Herschel V. Johnson, the anxiety and solici- 
tude with his own party and his special friends as to his ex- 
perience and knowledge and ability to sustain the reputa- 
tion of the State and administer the government were 
only equalled by the expectation of short-comings and 
failure on the part of his defeated political foes. It was 
difficult for the intelligent public to conceive that a man 
from the remote interior without the benefits of long 
association with central political juntos and rings, and 
without experience in civil administrations and a compara- 
tive personal stranger to a large portion of the people, 
could enter upon such an office without meeting many 
difficulties to obstruct his success. It was not in their 
process of reasoning upon the probabilities of his success 
that a man in the interior, endowed as he was by the very 
largest measure of brain power and unparalleled energy, 
perseverance, and moral courage, could become learned 
from the same authors studied in the central towns ; that he 
had the same universe spread out before him in which to 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. HI 

study nature, and people of the same race to live among 
and study human passion and frailty ; and that there 
was more leisure and fewer obstructions in the way of 
just and correct conclusions, and more influences to fix 
his principles and habits in accordance with the demands 
of integrity and fidelity in private intercourse and in pub- 
lic administration. 

Hence the true character of Joseph E Brown was not 
well understood, or the full measure of his administrative 
capacity well comprehended by any considerable number 
of even his own party in the State. Many good men 
were inclined to think the party had succeeded with a 
man who had to be aided and instructed in his duties, 
and were not prepared for the conclusion that he was 
himself bold, fearless, an irrepressible leader prepared 
to follow the dictates of his own superior judgment, and 
to lead not only the people, but his seniors in age, in the 
matters of soimd, practical, successful, honest government. 

Able men of the State in the Legislature and out felt 
they were his seniors in age, experience, and intellectual 
rank, that when he differed from the General Assembly, 
and sought to arrest hasty, inconsiderate, or unwise legis- 
lation by the exercise of the constitutional prerogative and 
duty of 

The Veto Power, 

he was dealing out his personal vanity, presumption, and 
ambition to the obstruction and hinderance of the legis- 
lative will emanating from the superior wisdom and pru- 
dence of the leaders thereof; and that he failed to culti- 
vate a proper consideration and deference for the opinions 
of that body. 

Against the criticisms of the opposition which had al- 
ready added to his strength and popularity with the peo- 



112 GOVEKNMENT OF GEORGIA 

pie in liis second election, in the message of November, 
1859, he tlins vindicates his administration : — 

"The numerous examples of hasty and inconsiderate legishition, which 
we so often -witness, are becoming a source of great detriment to the 
State and should be discouraged by all prudent legislators. One of the 
great evils of the age is, that M'e legislate too much. As a general rule, the 
failure of a bill that has merit in it is less to be regretted than the passage 
of a bad law. Wholesome rules of law with which the people have become 
familiar should not be changed, unless for good cause after very mature de- 
liberation. A failure on the part of the Legislature to observe this rule has 
involved our laws in much uncertainty, and has often kept the people in ig- 
norance of their true meaning. Our legislatoi's have frequently given too 
little attention to their duties during the earlier part of the session, and have 
left the greater part of the business of the session to be transacted within the 
last few- days before adjournment. Hence, their inability to give to each im- 
portant measure, brought before them at the close of the session, the atten- 
tion and deliberation necessary to its proper disposition. The consequence 
has been, that we have had much inconsistent and unwise legislation. If we 
would learn wisdom by experience, we might do much to correct this evil in 
future. I feel it my duty to use all the influence and power of my position 
to that end. I shall not, therefore, hesitate to lay aside and withhold my 
sanction from all such bills passed in the hurry and confusion which usually 
precede an adjournment as fail to command the approbation of my judg- 
ment, together with all such as have not been plainly and correctly enrolled 
and signed by the proper officers. 

" I would further suggest the propriety of dispensing with a great deal of 
the trivial, local, private, and class legislation which is introduced into almost 
every General Assembly, much of which is useless because it benefits no one, 
and much of it is unjust and mischievous, because it benefits a few individ- 
uals at the expense of the many. Let it be remembered, that each useless 
local Act introduced and passed cumbers the Journals and the pamphlet of 
Acts, and that the State pays out of money raised from the people by taxa- 
tion, for printing 4,000 copies of the Journals of each House and 5,000 copies 
of the Act itself, and that one day spent by the General Assembly in the 
passage of such Acts costs the State over |2,500, in pay of members, officers, 
and other expenses. A proper and just regard for economy demands refor- 
mation in this particular. The same objections that are applicable to trivial 
and local legislation, apply to much of our private or individual and class 
legislation, with many other objections on account of its injustice and in- 
equality. It would, in my opinion, be much better for the Legislature, with 
few exceptions, to lay down general rules of law, and let all alike regulate 
their conduct by them. 

"Entertaining these views, I have, during my term in office, frequently 



UNDEE JOSEPH E. BROWN. 113 

withheld my sanction from bills of the character above described. In so 
doing, I do not consider that I have been wanting in respect for the General 
Assembly. The Constitution has assigned to the Governor, as well as to the 
General Assembly, official powers and duties, and the people should hold him 
responsible for the independent exercise of his official powers, as well as the 
faithful discharge of his official duties. Neither House of the General As- 
sembly feels that it is wanting in respect for the other when it refuses to 
pass a Bill which it does not approve, though it may have been passed by the 
other. The constitution declares that the governor ' shall have the revision 
of all Bills passed by both Houses before the same shall become laws ;' and 
it only gives to the General Assembly power to pass laws, ' notwithstanding 
his dissent,' by two-thirds of both Houses. 

" If the Governor, therefore, out of respect for the two Houses, signs a Bill 
which his judgment does not approve, he denies to the people the exercise of 
that executive revision, which, under the constitution they have a right to 
demand as a protection against hasty or unwise legislation." 

Crime and Pardoning Power. 

At this period, the increase of crime had kept pace 
with the multipUed chances for escape of punishment on 
the part of those violating public law. With the increase 
of the class of men who disregard law, and pursue their 
own inclination, in defiance to its penalties, there had 
been a fearful relaxation on the part of judges, and an in- 
crease of men who serve on juries whose own life and 
conduct made them amenable to law, when rigidly admin- 
istered, and who therefore had strong sympathy with per- 
sons under indictment for the like offences they were in 
the habit of committing. The laws against gambling en- 
counter the opposition of all men fond of gambling, those 
regulating liquor traffic have not much support from 
men fond of tippling. Laws to protect virtue, and for the 
promotion of purity, between sexes, have all the chances 
of being evaded when libertines chance to be on the jury 
to try those who violate them. Men who rely upon 
deadly weapons, and cultivate the idea of punishing per- 
sonal insults and offences by violence, are slow to punish 



114 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

men whose conduct results from similar ideas and prac- 
tices. 

The increase of legal skill and tact in the defence of 
criminals ; the disposition to use the pardoning power by 
the Governor, and the General Assembly, tended to give 
assurance to lawless men against the ultimate penalties 
of criminal law, where there were social, pecuniary, or 
political advantages to be used in their behalf. As judge 
of the superior court for the two preceding years, he 
had seen the evil tendency of relaxation, and the want 
of firmness and nerve in the courts and juries. He had 
set his face as a judge against it, and while he incurred 
the hatred of criminals, and men committing misdemean- 
ors, by preventing their escape from conviction, and im- 
posing and executing the laws' penalties, he drew to 
him the confidence, esteem, and ardent support of the 
law and order loving people of all parties. And now 
that the executive office of the State was placed in his 
hands he had to confront the same spirit and fearful ten- 
dency, in a higher sense of responsibility, and in the face 
of far more formidable opposition. It was the influence 
of wealth and social power of political leaders whose op- 
position was to be dreaded in all future contests, and the 
attempt to make him odious before the people for the al- 
leged want of proper feelings of humanity, clemency 
and mercy. It involved on him the decision between the 
policy of giving encouragement to criminals, and immu- 
nity to crime, through the tender emotions of forgiveness 
and mercy, as to temporal penalties on the one hand, and 
the protection of life, liberty, and property of the whole 
people by making punishment certain, according to the 
rules of law. It involved him in the refusal to turn con- 
victed ofienders loose by the indiscriminate or liberal use 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 1]5 

of the pardoning power, and to sanction bills of the Gen- 
eral Assembly, even when backed by powerful influences, 
whose object was to relieve properly and legally con- 
victed criminals from the penalties of their crimes. 

The first important bill of this kind passed in the 
first session of the Legislature was to commute the pun- 
ishment of John Black under sentence of death for mur- 
der in Habersham county. In his veto message to this 
bill the Governor, after ably reviewing the case, and the 
law as to the constitutional power to commute by the 
Legislature after correction and sentence by the Court, 
foreshadowed his views and policy as follows : — 

"While I am controlled in my action in this case by the Constitu^^ional 
question, it may not be amiss to notice the question as one of public policy in 
connection with the question of Constitutional obligation. Should the right 
to commute the punishment be recognized and exercised in this case, it is 
not probable that there would ever be another case of capital punishment in 
Georgia ; the most aggravated case of murder would probably be brought be- 
fore the General Assembly. Eloquent and sympathetic appeals would be 
made to the passions and feelings of the Legislature. The result would 
probably be in every case a commutation of the punishment; and when the 
convict went to the Penitentiary, in a few years he might be pardoned out 
and let loose upon the community to shed more innocent blood. The clamor 
which is beginning to be raised for the pardon of every felon I can but re- 
gard as a false sympathy, tending to encourage the commission of crime by 
destroying in the minds of bad men the fear of certain punishment. In a 
deliberate case of wilful murder the best interest of the community requires 
that the culprit should suffer death. This is the revealed law of our Creator; 
He has said, ' the murderer shall surely be put to death.' Again, He has 
said, 'moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, 
which is guilty of death, but he shall be surely put to death.' ♦ So ye shall 
not pollute the land wherein ye are; for blood it defileth the land; and the 
land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of 
him that shed it.' That State or Nation, which is most faithful in its ob- 
servance of God's moral law, is always the most prosperous and happy. If 
we would save our land from the stain of innocent blood, we must execute 
the law and punish the guilty. While the pardoning power is a necessary 
one in every well regulated government, and while there are cases when it 
should be exercised, its indiscriminate exercise cannot fail to be attended 



116 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

■with the most ruinous consequences ; when the murderer is turned loose upon 
the community, let it be remembered that the blood of the innocent, slain 
like the blood of Abel of old, cries to us from the ground." 

The firm adherence to the settled opinion and policy of 
this message, in their application to the multitude of 
cases for pardon, drew down upon him the odium and the 
curses of criminals, their relatives and advocates, and 
strengthened the confidence of the law abiding people in 
their Governor, and tended to protect them against the 
crimes of lawless men by removing the hope of immunity 
from punishment when legally convicted. 

The rule laid down in the case of Black was a hard one 
to adhere to, and subjet;ted the Governor, in the course 
of his administration, to many severe tests of his firmness. 
Many are able to brave danger in the most terrific form, 
or to resist the influence of rewards when offered. But 
few men who are charged with individual responsibility 
in matters involving life or liberty have the stability to 
withstand the influence of sympathy aroused by the claims 
of early friendship, and the sacred and heart-subduing 
pleadings and appeals of a true and noble mother for her 
son under sentence of death. The case of William A; 
Choice, of Rome, put him to the test in both. 

His mother, a women of great worth and propriety, 
and of superior intelligence, had been proprietor of a 
hotel at Dahlonega, where Brown in his boyhood carried 
country produce to sell. Her great kindness to the poor 
country boy was fresh in his manhood memory. At this 
period she was the mother of elegant daughters, inter- 
married with prominent and influential men. The son 
himself, under sentence, was a man of brilliant mind, 
and of large personal popularity in his youth. The 
mother, as all true mothers would, visited the Governor 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BEOWK 117 

in person, in behalf of her only son. But he was firm, 
treating her with great tenderness and kindness ; he com- 
municated to her his determination to consider the case 
in the light of official duty under oath, and to follow his 
convictions of right in the case. The case attracted the 
attention of the people at large, was much discussed in 
newspapers, and social circles. Hon. Benj. H. Hill, the 
great criminal lawyer and advocate, who had defended 
him in vain in the court, and Hon. Daniel Printup, his 
brother-in-law and an able lawyer, sought and obtained 
seats in the State Senate, where, on the discussion of the 
bill for pardon, the former exerted his wonderful power 
of logic, eloquence, and pathos. 

The bill passed both Houses and went to the Governor. 
After an able review of the case, in which his judgment 
concurred with the court and jury, reviewing the plea 
of insanity, as the result of intoxication, the Governor 
concludes his veto message in the following language, 
which well illustrates the times, the case, and the man of 
iron will in the discharge of official duty : — 

" In determining a question of the character of the one now under con- 
sideration, I should be unfaithful to the high trust reposed in me, if I 
should permit my reason to be overcome by my sympathy. 

" No act of my life has been more unpleasant than the one I now perform. 
No one has a higher appreciation of the character of the relatives of the 
defendant, and no one would more sincerely rejoice to be able to soothe the 
feelings of a mother whose heart, pierced with anguish, now languishes 
with untold grief. But, if it were proper for me on this occasion to be 
influenced by considerations of this nature, I should do wrong, were I to 
contemplate the sufferings on one side, and refuse to look upon the picture 
of misery on the other. 

" A few months since the family of "Webb, the deceased, was comfortable 
and happy. His wife and little children had the care and protection of a 
fond husband and a kind father; but in a moment of time, by the cruel act 
of the defendant, the wife a widow, and the children orphans, were left to 
mourn their irreparable loss, and were thrown upon the cold charities of 
the world almost friendless and penniless, to make their way through life as 



118 GOVEENMENT OF GEORGIA 

best they could, poor and neglected. But duty forbids that I should be influ- 
enced by the contemplation of this scene of misery on either side. The laws 
must be vindicated, and crime must be punished, or society cannot be pro- 
tected, and Courts and Juries must be sustained in the administration and 
execution of the criminal laws of the land, or violence and bloodshed will 
prevail to an extent that will excite and prompt our people to take the 
law into their own hands, in the belief that it is the only protection 
left them. 

"I am not unmindful, while making this decision, that the pardoning 
power is a necessary one in every well regulated government, and that there 
are some cases in which it ought to be exercised, as in cases of partiality, 
prejudice, or highly excited feelings on the part of the Court or Jury by 
whom the case was tried, rendering it highly probable that injustice was 
done the defendant, or on account of perjury or mistake on the part of the 
witnesses for the State, which is afterwards discovered, and which may have 
materially influenced the verdict against the defendant, or in cases of con- 
viction upon such slight evidence that the mind is left in great doubt about 
the guilt of the defendant, or in cases of extreme youth, — in these and pos- 
sibly a few other instances when injustice is hkely to be done, and when 
the remedy is no longer within the reach of the Courts, the humanity of our 
Constitution has wisely vested in another department of the government 
ample power to prevent the injustice, by extending a pardon, and thus 
arresting the judgment of the Court. But it should not be forgotten that 
this power is subject to be greatly abused, and that it was not the»intention 
of those who formed our Constitution, that the verdicts of Juries and the 
judgments of Courts should be indiscriminately annulled by its exercise, and 
felons convicted of atrocious crimes thereby turned loose again upon the 
community ; the extension of mercy to such offenders is the infliction of 
cruelty and injustice upon society. I am also aware that it is argued that 
the pardoning power is a Godlike power, and that it is noble to exercise it. 
But it should not be forgotten wh6n this argument is used, that God himself 
required no less than the blood of his own Son as an atonement for sin 
before he exercised the pardoning power, and ' without the shedding of 
blood is no remission,' is the language of his ete^-nal truth. God has said 
iu his revealed law, that ' the murderer shall surely be put to death,' ' more- 
over ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is guilty 
of death : but he shall be surely put to death. So ye shall not pollute the 
land whereon ye are, for blood it defileth the land, and the land cannot be 
cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed 
it.' If then we would respect the revelation of God, and save our land from 
the stain of innocent blood, we must execute the law and punish the guilty. 
Some may say that the stern truths of the Bible are not suited to the 
humanity and sympathy of the present age ; they are none the less truths, 
however, on that account, and it is none the less certain that the curse of 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 119 

God will rest upon that State or nation wliicli disregards them, and that 
his blessings will attend those who obey them." 

The pardon failing, for the want of a two-third vote 
over the veto, the pending writ of error was prosecuted 
in the supreme court, and the conviction was affirmed. 
In the Legislature, a year later, a bill was passed to pardon 
him, and place him in the lunatic asylum. This bill was 
also vetoed by the Governor, on the grounds that the 
supreme court had reviewed and pronounced upon the 
whole case, and thoroughly considered the law of insanity 
in its application to this case. And upon the further 
ground that there was no power in the Legislature to 
adjudge him a lunatic, and commit him to the asylum, 
which could only be legally done by the court having 
jurisdiction of the case. This bill was passed over the 
veto, and Choice sent for a short time to the asylum, 
and died there. 

Banks and Banking. 

November 5, 1857, the retiring Governor Johnson com- 
municated to the Legislature in his general message : — 

" In the midst of prosperity and remunerating prices for the products of 
agriculture, our banks have generally suspended specie payments, resulting 
in panic, broken confidence, and general stagnation in commerce. As the 
session of the General Assembly was so near at hand, and the suspension 
seemed to be necessary, as a measure of self-defence against the heavy drafts 
upon their coin, to supply the demand for. specie at the North, T thought it 
prudent to withhold any action against them, as required by law, until the 
Legislature, in its wisdom, should have an opportunity of deliberating upon 
the matter, and directing what course ought to be pursued towards them. I 
therefore submit this whole subject to jour consideration ; and to enable you 
to act advisedly, I herewith transmit to you copies of the late returns of the 
various banks of Georgia, exhibiting their condition, made in. pursuance of 
executive proclamation. It is gratifying that these statements fifford evi- 
dence of their solvency. Will you legalize their suspension and fix a day in 
the future when they shall resume specie payments? As a general rule, it 
is safest to meddle as little as possible with the currency of the country. 
The laws of trade regulate it best. Hence, in view of the crisis that is upon 



120 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

us, complicated, as it is, with the interests of agriculture, and the price of its 
productions, it would seem to be wise to tolerate the suspension, in reference 
to all those institutions, which, upon examination, shall prove to be sound 
and solvent. It is not only legitimate, but the duty of the Legislature to in- 
vestigate thoroughly the condition of the banks ; to institute a diligent 
enquiry into their mode of transacting business, and, by the use of all the 
powers — even to sending for persons and papers — which may be necessary to 
ascertain whether they have confined their operations strictly within their 
appropriate spheres, or whether they have embarked in speculations, by plac- 
ing their funds in New York, to shave southern paper at a heavy discount, 
or in any other manner departed from the objects contemplated by their 
charters. It is due to the country that a full exposition be made; it is the 
only manner in which the public can be protected. It' such abuses shall be de- 
tected, let the Legislature, in granting them tolerance in their present predica- 
ment, put them upon terms which will prevent their recurrence for the future." 

This message came from one of the most able and pop- 
ular governors the State has had, and it was natural for 
the General Assembly to follow its suggestions, by the 
passage of an act to legalize the bank suspensions, and 
relieve them from the forfeiture of their charters, to which 
by suspension, they became liable. And the passage of 
the legalizing act recommended, developed in the young 
Governor a trait of character and a firmness in the face 
of the moneyed corporations of the State that drew to 
him the admiration of the people. His attempt to throt- 
tle the banks, and to force them like individuals to obey 
the laws of the State, was a sublime exhibition of moral 
courage, and imbedded him securely in their confidence, 
while it arrayed against him a monetary power and politi- 
cal influence that were well calculated to deter weak and 
timid men. His terrible review of banks and banking in 
this State, in reply to their pleas for suspending specie 
payments, in the veto message, to which no successful 
reply could be made, is one of the State papers that will 
do to be read in any country, or stage of civilized gov- 
ernment, by people seeking the height of truth and jus- 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 121 

tice. The document is elaborate and exhaustive. The 
foundation, premises, and conclusions are in the following 
extracts : — 

" Our banking institutions have exclusive privileges conferred upon them 
by law which are very valuable, and which the laboring masses are pro- 
hibited under a heavy penalty from exercising upon the same terms upon 
which the banks exercise them. The banks are permitted by law, without 
bond or security, to loan their credit, or, in other words, their own notes as 
money, and to charge interest upon them. The laboring man, whatever may 
be his occupation, is denied this privilege, and is subject to indictment and 
punishment as a criminal if he attempts to exercise it. lie can receive in- 
terest only upon the capital which is the income of his labor ; and upon this 
he is permitted to charge only legal interest, or seven per cent, per annum. 
The laboring masses produce the capital. Indeed, all capital is the result 
of labor; and that system of legislation which establishes a favored class, and 
confers upon them privileges denied to others, by which they are enabled to 
enrich themselves by taking from the laboring masses the income of their 
labor, is not only unjust, but contrary to the genius and, spirit of our gov- 
ernment. 

" I affirm that our banks, which have suspended and so continue, are guilty 
of a high' commercial, moral, and legal crime. Of a commercial crime, be- 
cause they have brought the present crisis upon the people for selfish pur- 
poses, when there was no great necessity, and when by spending a few thou- 
sand dollars of their immense profits in the purchase of specie the suspension 
could easily have been avoided. By refusing to do this they have destroyed 
public confidence, deranged commerce, caused our great staple to fall several 
cents on the pound, by which our planters have sustained a loss of several 
millions of dollars, and the value of property throughout the State has greatly 
depreciated. The credit of the State abroad has been injured, while general 
distrust and depression have been the result. They have been guilty of a 
moral crime by violating their contract with the people, in refusing to meet 
their solemn promises when they acknowledge, nay, even boast of their ability 
to do so, thereby doing the grossest injustice to the laboring masses who have 
confided in them and been deceived by them. They have been guilty of a 
legal crime by wilfully and knowingly violating and setting at open defiance 
a positive statute of the State, making the price of our property, the price of 
labor, the happiness and welfare of the people, and the law of the State all 
bend to their interest. They are governed solely by their interest, and it is 
their interest in times of prosperity to expand and extend their circulation, 
raise the price of property, stimulate a spirit of speculation and involve the 
country in their debt as much as possible. 

* * * * 

" In 1840, while t\).e people were passing through one of those periods of 



122 GOVERNMENT OE GEORGIA 

distress above alluded to, they determined to protect themselves, if possible, 
against such a state of things in future ; and, through their representatives, 
they passed a law requiring the banks which had suspended to resume spe- 
cie payment within less than two months after the passage of the Act and 
requiring all the banks of this State in future to redeem all their liabilities 
in specie, on demand or presentation — while forfeiture of the charter was pro- 
vided as the penalty for a violation of the law. The people relying upon this 
plain statute, as well as the common law which takes away the charter of a 
corporation which abuses the trust and palpably violates the contract upon 
which the charter was obtained, supposed they were secure against further 
bank suspensions. On account of the value of their corporate privileges it 
was believed that motives of interest would prompt the banks to make, out 
of their large gains, a sacrifice, if need be, sufficient to enable them to pro- 
cure the specie and redeem their bills to save their charters. It was not then 
believed that the banks would have the power to violate the law with im- 
punity, and to dictate the terms of their own pardon. Since the passage of 
the Act of 1840, the number of banks and the amount of banking capital in 
the State have greatly increased. As their number and capital have increased, 
their power in the State and their influence over the legislation of the country 
have increased. Who has not observed within the last few years the increas- 
ing influence of our wealthy corporations over our Legislature ? When their 
interest is at stake, outside pressure becomes very strong upon the law-mak- 
ing power and is too sensibly felt. 

" If the suspension is legalized it cannot be denied that the banks have 
triumphed over the people and set the law at defiance. They have made at 
once the interest upon the whole amount of their circulation for the entire 
period of the suspension. They receive interest upon all their bills ; they 
pay no interest and cannot be compelled to redeem the bills. It is no I'eply 
to say that they may be sued and compelled to pay interest after protest, and 
ten per cent, damages. The bills are scattered all over the State in the 
hands of the people, in small sums, and not one in fifty has an amount of the 
bills of any one bank large enough to justify him in employing a lawyer in 
Augusta or Savannah, and standing a suit with the bank. Better give up 
the debt in many cases than incur the expense, trouble, and delay. Legalize 
the suspension and the bills still further depreciate, property falls lower, and 
exchange rises higher. The country has no currency but depreciated bills* 
(for the banks will lock up all the gold and silver in their vaults) and we 
have no means of determining which banks are solvent, and which are in- 
solvent. At the time set for them to resume the insolvent banks would be 
unable to do so. During the suspension they would have flooded the country 
with their bills and the failure would then fall much more heavily upon the 
people than it would if they were wound up now before they have time to in- 
crease the circulation of their worthless bills. If they are not good the sooner 
the test is made, and the fact known, the better for us all. If they are good, 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 123 

they can buy gold and resume specie payment. If they do not, let their 
charters be forfeited." 

The General Assembly, although Democratic, was not 
apace with the pioneer Governor in his attempt to execute 
the law upon banks, and to protect the people. He 
was in this, as in many other respects, living in advance 
of even the higher classes of intelligent leaders, who re- 
garded the summary course he recommended harsh and 
hurtful in its certain effects on commerce, credit, and the 
general business of the country. They overruled his 
veto and passed the suspension Act ; but behind the legis- 
lators stood the people in almost solid phalanx with their 
heroic Governor. The banks felt that the Executive was, 
when true to the trusts of his high office, a power in the 
State not to be scoffed or derided, but to be obeyed and 
respected when charged with the duty of protection to 
the people. 

The Act granted them until the 15th of November, 1858, 
to resume ; but the voice of the people and the odium of 
suspension in the face of the statute of the State caused 
the resumption by the first of May preceding. 

In the general message of November, 1858, after stat- 
ing the history and effect of this bank controversy the 
Governor says : — 

" For the purpose of compelling these corporations to yield obedience to 
the law in future, I respectfully recommend the penalty for disobedience be 
increased, and in addition to the penalty already prescribed, that a tax of two 
per cent, a month upon the whole amount of the capital stock mentioned in 
the charter of each delinquent bank be levied and collected in gold and sil- 
ver for the entire time during which any such bank may in future remain 
in a state of disobedience, and fail to make its returns as directed by the 
statutes. There can be no just reasons why wealthy corporations should be 
permitted at their pleasure to set the law at defiance, while individuals are 
compelled to suffer rigorous penalties for its violation. The mandates of the 
law should be obeyed as promptly and implicitly by the most influential and 



124 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

wealthy as by the poorest and most needy. This is republican equality, and 
our people should be content with nothing else. 

I presume it will not be denied by any one that we have erred by a too 
liberal and unguarded grant of corporate powers and privileges to moneyed 
monopolies. And it is believed that a future extension of this policy would 
soon enable these monopolies to control the government of Georgia and make 
the people the subjects of their power. It is already claimed by some that 
they now have the power, by combinations and free use of large sums of 
money, to control the political conventions and elections of our State, and in 
this way to crush those who may have the independence to stand by the 
rights of the people in opposition to their aggressive power. I trust that 
the bold, independent and patriotic people of Georgia may never be compelled 
to bow the neck in subjection to the yoke thus intended to be imposed by 
the corporate powers of the State. Let it not be forgotten, however, by 
those who have watched with anxiety the growing power of corporate influ- 
ence, that the price of republican liberty is perpetual vigilance. 

" The monetary and commercial affairs of the country must necessarily re- 
main subject to panics, under heavy pressures, at certain, if not frequent 
intervals, as long as our present banking system is continued with its enor- 
mous powers and privileges, which have been enlarged and extended by 
legislative enactment, chartering new banks from year to year. The people 
should take this subject into serious consideration, and pronounce upon it a 
calm and deliberate judgment. Every intelligent person must admit that 
it is impossible for a bank having a paper circulation three times as large as 
the amount of its specie to redeem all its bills in specie on demand. Should 
all its bills be presented for payment at any one time, and the specie be de- 
manded, it can then redeem but one-third of them. In that case, if the bank 
has sufficient assets, or property, the other two-thirds may possibly not be an 
ultimate loss, but payment must be delayed till the money can be realized by 
a disposition of those assets and property, which may not be till the end of a 
lengthy and uncertain litigation. It is clear, therefore, that our present pa- 
per currency is not a currency convertible, at all times, into gold and silver 
upon presentation ; and that only one-third of it, should payment be demanded 
on all atone time, can, in the nature of things, be so convertible, so long as 
the banks issue three dollars in paper for one in coin. 

"In my judgment, no paper currency is safe which is not so regulated as 
to be at all times readily convertible into gold and silver. It is true, our people, 
by a sort of common consent, receive the bills of the banks and use them as 
money, though in reality they rest on no solid specie basis. But sad experi- 
ence has taught us that such a circulating medium subjects the country to 
panic at the first breath of distrust or suspicion, which may be produced by 
the failure of a single bank having a large circulation and extensive connec- 
tions with other banks, and may widen and extend to the prostration of the 
credit of the whole country. Such a currency, having no solid specie basis, 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 125 

can be available only so long as the community will consent to receive promi- 
ses to pay money in the place of immey itself. 

" The people take from the banks their bills as money. The banks re- 
ceive interest, and often exchange, upon them. When required to redeem 
their bills in specie, they suspend, if they choose to do so; and then, if an at- 
tempt is made to coerce payment iu specie, they resist it, holding a rod over the 
people by threatening to make them pay upon a specie basis debts contracted 
by them for the bills of the bank ; notwithstanding those bills, when they 
received them, rested on a basis of one-third specie. The high prerogative 
of exercising banking privileges, and of issuing their own notes or bills to be 
circulated as money, not resting upon any solid specie basis, is secured to the 
banks under our present system of legislation as an exclusive right, while the 
exercise of similar privileges upon like terms is denied to all individual citi- 
zens of the State by stringent penal enactments. 

" The privilege of using their own notes as money gives, to the favored few 
who enjoy it, immense advantages over their fellow-citizens, and may often 
enable the managers of these corporations to amass great wealth by their 
high salaries and large profits. It may however be said that many of the 
stockholders are widows and orphans ; that the stock is in the market for 
all ; and that the dividends are not greater than the profits realized from 
other investments. This may be admitted. Indeed, it seems in practice to 
be generally true, that corporate privileges do not result so much to the bene- 
fit of the mass of stockholders as to the benefit of the few who manage the 
corporation. To estimate correctly the profits made out of the people by 
those engaged in banking, we must not only count the dividends of seven, 
eight or ten per cent, distributed among the stockholders, but we must also 
take into the account the banking houses, real estate and other property 
purchased out of the profits of the bank and held by the corporation. 
Besides, we should consider a reserved fund of two, three, or four hundred 
thousand dollars, made up of accumulated profits, and often kept back by 
our larger banks and not distributed among the stockholders, together with 
the high salaries of all the officers of the bank, which must be paid before 
any dividends are distributed. These sums, though made out of the people 
by the banks, are not semi-annually divided among the stockholders. To 
these add all sums paid to attorneys, agents, etc., and all amounts lost by 
defaulting agents, which, while they cannot be set down as profits of the 
corporation, since neither its officers proper nor its stockholders are bene- 
fited thereby, are still sums of money which, under the workings of the sys- 
tem, are drawn by the corporation from the pockets of the people. 

" To all this add the large sums lost almost every year on account of 
broken banks, whose bills are left worthless in the hands of the people, who 
have paid full price for them as money. And take into the account the 
further fact that the State, in 184.8 "and 1849, issued $515,000 of her bonds, 
to meet her liabilities on account of the Central bank, |240,000 of which 



126 GOVERNMENT OF GEOEGIA 

are still outstanding. And that in 1855, she issued $48,500 of bonds to pay 
her indebtedness on account of the Darien bank, which are still unpaid, 
making $288,500 of bonds on account of these two banks which still remain 
a portion of the public debt, the interest upon which is paid annually out of 
the taxes of the people — and we may form some estimate of the amounts 
which the people of Georgia have paid and continue to pay in taxes, and 
suffer in losses, to sustain the banking system. 

" Again, in many instances, those who control the corporation may have 
great advantages in being able, if they choose, to obtain such accommoda- 
tions as they may desire, by the use of its funds, when a favorable oppor- 
tunity for speculation occurs. The dividends paid to stockholders are 
therefore no proper criterion by which to judge of the advantages of the 
corporation to those who hold its offices, and control and manage its capital 
and its operations ; or of the sums lost by the people on account of the work- 
ings of the system. 

" Thus far I have discussed this question upon the supposition that the 
liabilities do not exceed three dollars for every one of specie actually on 
hand in the banks to meet and satisfy them. This supposition is more 
favorable to many of the banks than facts will justify. The law of their 
charters only requires that their liabilities shall not exceed three dollars for 
every one of capital stock actually pa/rf in and not three dollars for every one 
of specie on hand to meet those liabilities. As an illustration of the error 
of our present legislation in incorporating banks, suppose the amount of the 
capital stock of the bank be limited by the charter to $500,000 which is to be 
paid in, in gold and silver, by the stockholders. The charter then provides 
that the liabilities of the bank shall at no time exceed three times the 
amount of the capital stock actually paid in. The stockholders paid in the 
$500,000 in gold and silver. The directors of the bank may then, without 
any violation of the letter of the charter, incur liabilities against the bank to 
any amount that does not exceed $1,500,000 ; and that too, without any 
obligation on their part to keep in their vaults the $500,000 actually paid in, 
or a like sum. If they should take out $400,000 of their specie and invest 
it in real estate or other property, leaving but $100,000 of specie in the 
vaults, they may still contract debts to the amount of a million and a half, 
and may point in triumph to the language of their charter, and to the fact 
that the $500,000 of capital stock was once actually paid in, as their author- 
ity for so doing. 

" This bank legislation of our State does not seem to have been well under- 
stood by our people. They have generally believed that banks, by the let- 
ter of their charters, were required to have on hand at all times an amount 
of specie one-third as large as the entire amount of their liabilities. The 
banks have understood the matter very differently, and have not only 
claimed, but exercised the right when they regarded it their interest, to ex- 
tend their liabilities far beyond three dollars for every one of specie actually 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 127 

on hand to meet those liabilities. By examination of their returns made to 
this department in October, 1857, it will be seen that at the time of the late 
suspension of our banks in Augusta and Savannah, the liabilities of one of 
them for bills in circulation and individual deposits, exceeded thirteen dollars 
for every one dollar of both specie and bills of other banks which it then 
had on hand. Another had only one dollar in specie in its vaults for every 
fifteen dollars of its liabilities for bills in circulation and deposits. Another 
had not one dollar in specie for every seven of liability for bills in circulation 
and deposits ; and another had only one dollar in specie for every eleven dol- 
lars ^of its liabilities of the character mentioned above. It is true these 
banks had other assets, but those assets were not money. The question 
naturally suggests itself, how can such a currency be convertible into gold and 
silver — the money of the constitution — on demand or presentation? How can 
a bank wiih. fifteen dollars of cash liabilities for every one dollar in specie, or 
even of five dollars for one, pay its liabilities promptly on demand ? It is 
impossible. And how can its bills be justly considered safe as a circulating 
medium, or as money, if it cannot redeem them promptly on demand ? 

" In consideration of all the imperfections and abuses of our present bank- 
ing system, I am of opinion that we should do all in our power to bring about 
its complete reformation, and if this be not possible, we should abandon it 
entirely. I am the advocate of no harsh measure that would either violate 
the legal rights of the present corporations (however unwisely they were 
granted), or that would bring distress upon the people by a sudden return 
from a paper to a specie currency. A reformation so radical, if attempted, 
must be the work of years. If the Legislature would continually refuse to 
charter any new bank, or to enlarge the capital stock of, or re-charter any 
bank now in existence, the system would gradually work itself out by efflux 
of time; and we might, without any sudden shock, return safely to the cur- 
rency of the constitution, plant ourselves upon a firm specie basis, and rid 
ourselves of a system against which the great and good men who conducted 
the revolution and formed our constitution intended to guard their posterity, 
when they declared in the constitution that nothing but gold and silver coin 
should be made a legal tender. 

" In two of the States of this Union banks are prohibited by constitutional 
provision; two others have no banks, and another had but two small banks, 
whose charters, it is said, have been forfeited by the late suspension. And I 
am informed upon what I consider reliable authority, that the late com- 
mercial pressure was comparatively but little felt within the limits of those 
States. 

" Should our people determine, however, to continue the present banking 
system, and to charter new banks, increasing their number and thereby in- 
creasing their power in the State, I would respectfully urge the importance 
of guarding all charters with much greater stringency in the future. Let 
the charter of each provide that the entire liabilities of the bank shall at no 



128 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA. 

time exceed three dollars for every one of specie actually in its vaults and 
bona fide the property of the bank, on pain of immediate forfeiture. Let 
the simple fact of suspension of specie payment render the charter absolutely 
null and void. This would deter them from engaging in such wild specula- 
tions and over-issues as compel them to suspend in case of pressure. Let 
provision also be made that all executions issued against the corporation may 
be levied upon the property of any stockholder until the creditor be satisfied, 
leaving the stockholder to his legal remedies against the rest of the stock- 
. holders to enforce contribution among themselves. Let the bills of the bank 
in the hands of the people at the time of suspension bear interest from that 
time till paid. And let the Legislature retain the right, by express reserva- 
tion in the charter, to alter, modify, or repeal it at pleasure. In my opinion 
it would be best for the Legislature to refuse to grant a charter to any cor- 
poration for any purpose whatever without retaining a similar power, should 
its exercise be required by the interests of the State or the public good. If 
the corporation is unwilling to trust the people with this repealing power, 
how much more should the people be unwilling to trust the corporation 
without it." 

Two years later, when the then recent election of Mr. 
Lincoln, the abolition candidate, as president, rendered 
secession and revolution probable, and when the State 
was preparing for a convention to determine her course, 
the banks again sought relief by an Act to legalize their 
suspension. 

On the 30th of November, 1860 : " For the general rea- 
sons against bank suspensions contained in the message of 
December, 1857," he returned the Bill without approval 
in an elaborate message setting forth the history of the 
question and the results. 

The following extracts show the firmness and nerve of 
the Governor in the maintenance of his opinion of right : — 

" The suspension of specie payment by the banks is not for the benefit of 
the banks but for the benefit of the people ! The constant efforts made by 
bank men to practise upon popular credulity, by the declaration of this 
strange absurdity, are not a little remarkable. If this be true why is it, when 
such a measure is to be carried, that our lobbies are crowded with bank presi- 
dents, bank directors and bank stockholders who are constantly besieging 
the members of the General Assembly with clamorous appeals for the passage 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BEOWN. 129 

of the bill, while the banks with which they are connected oo-operate with 
tliem for the purpose of keeping up the excitement by refusing to extend the 
smallest accommodation to the people till the bill is passed ? Why is it that 
these gentlemen never take upon themselves to guard the people's interest 
and spend money to secure the passage of bills through the Legislature, ex- 
cept when it is desirable to pass a bank suspension bill? This is not the first 
time I have seen all their influences brought to bear upon the Legislature 
for the purpose of accomplishing an object in the midst of wild excitement 
and great alarm. The small number of members of the present General 
Assembly who were here in 1857, and voted for the bank bill of that year, 
will, I think, concur with me in the statement, that the excitement at the 
capitol in 1857 was much greater than the advocates of the present bill have 
been able to create on this occasion. The people then did not appreciate 
the favor conferred on them by the passage of the law. 

* * * * 

" It may be claimed that the present political aspect of affairs requires the 
legislation proposed by this bill. Li case the convention of the people of this 
State, when it meets in January next, shall pass an ordinance declaring the 
State out of the Union, on account of the refusal of the Northern States to 
abide by the Constitution, it may become proper to make an exception to a 
general rule, and permit a suspension for a short time : as a change in the 
relations of Georgia to the United States' Government might, for a time, 
produce some derangement in the currency which could not be anticipated 
by the banks; and they might, in such case, be entitled to a lenity to which 
they would not be entitled under ordinary circumstances. I do not admit, 
however, that it is either wise or just to pass an Act in advance which au- 
thorizes the xsuspension till 1861, without regard to what may be the action 
of the convention. If the State secedes from the Union, the Legislature will 
probably have to be again convened to provide for our future safety and wel- 
fare ; and it might then be time enough to determine this question." 

The General Assembly, yielding to the clamor for relief 
and fearing the injurious effects threatened, passed the act 
over the veto. 

This bank controversy, and the unyielding opposition 
of the executive to everything that tended to result in 
wrong and damage to the people, through the defalcation 
of any banking companies, is one important part of 
her history, which in connection with the sleepless vigi- 
lance over the treasury, the sagacious management of the 
public property and judicious course in providing for and 



130 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

meeting promptly tlie State's debts, gave to her Gov- 
ernor a measure of popular confidence and ardor of pop- 
ular support that grew and strengthened with the 
severity of criticism, and the vindictiveness of opposition 
from his enemies. And it goes far to explain the true 
causes for the advanced position Georgia held among her 
sister Southern States in credit, the value of her bonds, 
and the confidence of financial men and institutions 
abroad. 

Administration of Western & Atlantic Railroad. 

This great public work, as a State enterprise, met with 
strong popular opposition from its inception based on the 
Democratic theory of opposition to internal improvements 
by the general government, and the political doctrine 
that it is inequitable and unjust to tax the whole people 
for improvements to particular sections, and for the 
direct benefit of only a portion of the taxpayers. The 
friends and advocates of the road replied to the objec- 
tions by picturing the effect of this enterprise when 
completed upon the general prosperity of the State and 
the enhancement of values, and consequent increase of 
resources, and the means of meeting and discharging 
.the State's debts contracted for the building and equip- 
ment of the road, by the opening of a new outlet of travel 
and commerce to the ocean and gulf through the heart of 
this State. 

Under the rapid historic development of the country 
within the State, and increase of trade and travel from 
beyond her limits, and the verification of the theories of 
the projectors and advocates of the road, the popular pre- 
judice against it as a public work abated j and the people 
realized the immense value and benefit they had acquired 



UNDEE JOSEPH E. BROWK 131 

through the superior wisdom of the men they had opposed 
and censured for incurring State debts to build it. 

But the history of the road, the financial management 
of it, and the popular feeling growing out of the adverse 
criticisms of the party out of power, and not enjoying the 
emoluments of the offices and contracts which the party 
in power had at command and to bestow, had precipitated 
difficulties, and great perplexities, to the immediate prede- 
cessors of Governor Brown. 

The personal integrity and honesty of Governors 
Towns, Gobb, and Johnson, who had the administration 
of the State and road for the ten years preceding, were 
beyond all question by candid men. Still, in spite of all 
vigilance on their part, complaints against them, and 
against the Democratic party in power under their ad- 
ministrations of partiality and favoritism for party 
purposes, and of fraud and peculation, and private specula- 
tion on the part of officers and employees were rife, 
through the partisan press, in public orations, and private 
discussions of the people. The road was held up to the 
public as a huge and overpowering means of political 
and partisan power and control over the people in elec- 
tions, through the influence of men enjoying and seeking 
personal advantage and gain. 

Tlie Democratic masses did not credit the charges made 
against their Governors, and the party under their admin- 
istrations adhered firmly and truly to the integrity of 
Governor Johnson, whose purity of character was above 
all suspicion for the four years he had been in power. 
Still the people, while not willing to quit the party on 
account of individual abuses and wrongs brought to their 
attention, earnestly desired some system of reform in the 
administration of the road, that would quiet, and effect- 



132 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

iially stop tlie clamors of the opposition, by the removal 
of every appearance of the wrongs complained of. Such 
was the public temper at the time Governor Johnson re- 
tired, and Governor Brown was installed. 

He had resided in the section of the State through 
which the road was located, been engaged in the law 
practice, and presided as judge when its affairs had been 
investigated, and had been called on as a Democratic 
leader and public speaker to defend his party against the 
multitude of charges made against its management. He 
not only knew and felt the public temper and desire, but 
understood to what extent there was just cause of com- 
plaint. He not only was endowed with superior compre- 
hension and ability, as well as sleepless vigilance and tire- 
less energy, but had more nerve, moral courage, and 
inflexible will to work out the desired reform than any of 
the public men of the State probably possessed at that 
time. And with all these, he combined an honest pur-_ 
pose to bring about the much desired reform ; to cut off 
extravagance, peculation, and waste, and to make the 
road a source of revenue in lieu of an expense and bur- 
den to the State. 

Like his predecessors, he lived to see that it was a 
moral impossibility to silence all complaints. The an- 
tagonism excited by displacements and removals inaugu- 
rated a system of severe espionage and criticism upon all 
his official action. 

These complaints from the opposing party soon ceased, 
and that party derived satisfaction from Democratic dis- 
content. The Governor was subjected to the criticisms 
and murmurings of displeased men of his own party. 
He appointed Dr. John W. Lewis general superintendent 
of the road. A man unlike himself in age and experi- 



UNDEE JOSEPH E. BEOWK 133 

ence, but, like himself, a Democrat in full accord witli the 
principles and high aims of the party, and a man of great 
personal integrity, industry, and of economy and success 
in his own private affairs, who carried with him into this 
high and responsible and perplexing office not only the 
purpose to administer it faithfully and honestly, to make 
the road a financial success to the State, and thus pre- 
serve and enlarge his own reputation, but to enhance 
that of the young Governor by whom he had been ap- 
pointed, and whom it was his own pride and happiness 
to have aided in his early struggles to complete his edu- 
cation. And who, like his chief, had been long annoyed 
by complaints, true and false, of malversation on the part 
of under officers and employees, and who was, therefore, - 
in full accord with him in the purpose to reform all real 
abuses, and disarm enemies of the accustomed luxury of 
complaining even at the appearance of waste. 

No time was lost, or pains spared in carrying these aims 
and purposes into execution. And with the inauguration 
of rigid and inflexible economy, there arose a merciless 
com,plaint — not of waste, corruption, malversation, or pecu- 
lation — for all appearance of these had instantaneously 
disappeared ; but of alleged niggardly economy and 
downright stinginess, as well as a total want of financial 
liberaliry on the part of the management. Dr. Lewis was 
assailed with severe complaints on account of his prompt 
action and stern adherence to the policy of his chief, 
which challenged his own unqualified approval, and with 
jest and ridicule for alleged penuriousness. But with 
the nei;ve and firmness only equalled by that of his chief, 
he disregarded them all and plied his mind and all his 
energies to make the policy, what it proved to be, a 
grand success for the State. Discontented people even 



134 GOVERNMENT OF GEOEGIA 

directed their criticism to the Governor himself, and did 
not scruple to refer to the republican simplicity and well 
regulated economy of his own household and private 
affairs. 

He never drank or encouraged the drinking of intoxi- 
cating liquors before or after he became Governor, and 
could not use tobacco or endure the smoke of it. These 
long enjoyed excitant luxuries were discontinued in the 
receptions of the mansion ; and that which was based on 
principle, and his exalted conceptions of morality, and his 
decided convictions of the ruinous effects of the example 
of drinking in high life, was attributed to stinginess, or 
ill advised and distasteful economy on the part of a high 
public officer, who was expected to cater to the culti- 
vated taste and the appetite of the people with whom he 
had official or social contact. 

But all complaint and criticism were powerless to shake 
his purposes, or to unsettle the fixed principles of a life 
shaped by them in private, and carried with all their 
strength and vigor into the administration of the State, in 
all her multiplied interests. 

The connections of the road were about being largely 
extended by the completion of the roads northwest of 
Chattanooga, its western terminus, by which there was 
an increase in the gross income. By reason of the re- 
form inaugurated, the stopping of unnecessary waste, 
and useless expenditure, the comparative expenses were 
diminished, and there began a rapid increase in the net 
earnings and profits of the road, which were paid monthly 
into the treasury of the State from that of the roaji. As 
a natural consequence, the popularity of the Governor 
widened, and grew in intensity, and confidence, and ap- 
proval, and support extended to all classes and parties, in 



UNDEE JOSEPH E. BEOWN. 135 

everj section of the State. And the matters alleged 
against the Governor, of an excess of economy, and an 
over zeal in stopping leaks, and catting off useless ex- 
penses, were such as to magnify his popularity with the 
people, and to strengthen their purposes to support and 
uphold his administration. These purposes became so 
general and fixed with the large majority of the people 
of the State, that no public man could assail the wisdom, 
or question the integrity of his administration, without 
depreciating himself in public confidence. 

In November, 1853, the retiring Governor Cobb^ in 
his annual message, reviewed the affairs of the road, its 
management and government, advocating a uniform 
system of government by superintendent appointed by, 
in harmony with, and amenable to the Governor, and 
opposed to its sale as had been suggested. He brought 
before the Legislature the difficulties and embarrassments 
attending it, and recommended '• to lease the road under 
an act of incorporation. Let a charter be granted with a 
capital stock of $500,000, in shares of $100 each, etc." 
The General Assembly however did not see fit to carry 
out his plan, but continued the government of the road 
under his successor. Governor Johnson. 

He, after two years of trial and vexation under the 
system, in his message of November, 1855, made the fol- 
lowing statement and recommendation : — 

" The Road is the people's property, constructed for their common benefit 
and therefore it is peculiarly appropriate for you, as their representatives, to 
prescribe the line of policy to be pursued. Nor is it necessary to discuss the 
various plans suggested for its future management. Some insist that it 
should be sold, either in part or in whole, so as to sever its ownership from 
the State, or to give its control to private individuals. Others urge that it 
, should be leased for a term of years. These propositions were discussed by 
my immediate predecessor, and considered by the last Legislature. They 



136 GOVERNMENT OF GEOEGIA 

have also, in the mean time, engaged the popular mind, to a considerable 
extent, and you are doubtless prepared to represent correctly, by your action, 
the public sentiment. Another mode proposed is, to place its management 
in the hands of a board, composed of three Commissioners, to be chosen by 
the peo{>le. I refer to these propositions to demonstrate what I believe to 
be indispensable to meet the expectations of the people of the whole State, 
and that is, the necessity of removing its administration beyond the arena 
of politics — of taking it from Executive control — of making it independent 
of party influences, However widely different these various propositions 
are, they aiford conclusive evidence of the restlessness of the popular mind 
on the subject. The sentiment is all pervading, and is manifested in a 
thousand forms, that this is expected and demanded at your hands. How it 
shall be done is the question for your wisdom. I have no hesitation in 
expressing the firm belief, that it were better to adopt any one of these pro- 
positions, than to permit the road to be managed under the present mode of 
its organization. The idea of this vast capital being subject to the fluctua- 
tions of party politics — confided to agents, who, as a general rule will be 
changed every two years, in obedience to the utterances of the ballot box, is 
preposterous and ridiculous in the extreme. It is only railroad men who 
understand the conduct of these great works. Politicians, who aspire to 
gubernatorial honors, know but little, if anything, about it. How absurd, 
therefore, to place the Executive at the head of the road — inexperienced and 
therefore disqualified— and expect him to manage it with skill and success ? 
How unjust to him — how hazardous to the interest of the people, to saddle 
him with so heavy a responsibility. Without disparagement to predecessors, 
it is believed that the road has never been better managed than it has been 
during the last two years. Economy and punctuality, in every department, 
have been enforced — not a dollar lost by defalcation — not a dollar recovered 
in litigation for damages which accrued within that period — but few and 
slight disasters from running off or collisions of trains — and yet the dissat- 
isfaction and complaint, in certain quarters, are deep and loud. All, all 
demonstrating that the policy of severing it from Executive control is 
absolutely imperative. I respectfully urge the Legislature to do it." 

The General Assembly, large as was the measure of 
confidence m the wisdom of their re-elected Governor, 
declined to carry out his wish to have the government of 
the road separated from Executive control. 

On retiring in November, 1857, his message contains 
this statement : — 

" Its gross earnings from the 30th September, 1853, to the 30th of Septem- 
ber, 1357, which covers the four years of my administration, have been 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 137 

$3,052,260.82. The working expenses of the road for the same period have 
been $1,329,411.51, and the net earnings $1,722,849.31. How has this large 
amount of net profits been disposed of ? Has it been squandered or applied 
to necessary expenditures ? These are questions which should be answered 
to the satisfaction of the people, and when thus answered, the senseless 
clamor which is raised against the management of the road, for mere 
decency's sake, ought to cease. Then see how the account stands. 

JSTet earnings for four years, $1,722,849.31." 

To which is a tabular statement of the expenditure of 
the entire amount, of which were paid into the State 
treasury for 1854, $50,000 : 1855, $100,000 : 1856, $43,- 
500: 1857, $100,000 : The balance mainly for locomo- 
tives, tracks, depots, cars, etc. 

And upon this the Governor makes this comment : 

" Whether these expenditures were proper, is left for fair minded men to 
determine. They, at least, seem suited to the enterprise, and cannot be con- 
sidered unreasonable, when it is recollected that the road is not even yet com- 
pleted and thoroughly equipped for the annually increasing business it is 
compelled to accommodate. At all events, it will scarcely be asserted by any 
having a due regard for veracity, that the money has been either stolen or 
wasted. But these heavy expenditures will not be required hereafter. The 
time has come for the patience of the friends of the road to have its reward. I 
fully concur with the Superintendent, that henceforth, under proper manage- 
ment, it will pay into the State Treasury $350,000 annually. 

" It may be suggested, however, that the mismanagement is not in the 
application of the net earnings, bi;t in the expenses of maintaining and work- 
ing the road. Let us see how the State Road compares, in this respect, with 
other roads in the State, what proportion the current expenses bear to the 
gross earnings. The gross earnings of the Georgia Railroad, for the last four 
years, were $4,016,346.14 ; the expense for working and maintaining it, for 
the same period, were $1,848,617.02, or about 45 per cent. The gross earn- 
ings of the Macon & Western road, for the four years, from December, 
1852, to December, 1856, were $1,290,445.00, and the working expenses for 
the same period, $468,340.00, or 50|- per cent. The gross earnings of the 
Central Railroad, including the line from Gordon to Eatonton, from December 
1, 1853, to December 1, 1856, and the line from Millen to Augusta, to the 
1st of January, 1856, were $4,697,269.68 ; and the current expenses for the 
same period, were $2,219,043.17, or 47^ per cent. These are confessedly the 
best managed company roads in Georgia. But the Western & Atlantic 
Railroad compares favorably with them in reference to the point under con- 
sideration. Its gross earnings for the last four years are $3,052,260.82, 



138 GOVERNMENT OE GEORGIA 

and its working expenses, for the same period, $1,329,411.51, or a little less 
than 43^ per cent. It would seem that the country might afford to be satis- 
fied, if the State road be managed as cheaply as those of private companies. 
Certainly the fact is worthy of consideration, when its administration is 
branded with corruption and mismanagement." 

With this the Executive authority of the State, which 
continued to hold the manas-einent of the Western & 
Atlantic Railroad, passed into the hands of Joseph E. 
Brown, where both remained up to and during the late 
war, and the surrender of the State with the Confederate 
authorities and property at its close. 

The results of Governor Brown's policy and sagacity, 
his energy and firmness, are brietly stated in the following 
extract from his annual message in November, 1859, and 
after his re-election as Governor. 

" For information in reference to the condition, management, and incomes 
of the Western & Atlantic Railroad for the year ending 30th September 
last, you are referred to the Report of Dr. John W. Lewis, its very vigilant, 
efficient, and worthy Superintendent. I feel that I do but an act of justice 
when I say that in my opinion the State has at no time had connected with 
the road, in any capacity, a more competent, trustworthy, and valuable public 
servant. It will be seen by reference to his Report, that the sum of $402,000 
in cash has been paid into the State Treasury from the net earnings of the 
road during the fiscal year ending 30th September last ; and it will be seen 
by the report of the State Treasurer and Comptroller General, that four hun- 
dred and twenty thousand dollars have been paid into the Treasury during 
the fiscal year ending 20th October, 1859. The old iron on about 25 miles 
of the track, has, since the 1st January, 1858, been taken up and its place 
supplied with heavy new rail. The road-bed and all the superstructure and 
machinery are kept in excellent order. No new debts are contracted which 
are not promptly paid monthly, if demanded ; and no agent appointed or re- 
tained in office during my administration is known to be a defaulter to the 
amount of a single dollar. 

" I confess that the amount paid into the Treasury from the road, during 
the past yeai*, has somewhat exceeded my expectations. For this I am in- 
debted not only to the Superintendent, but also to the untiring efforts of the 
honest, industrious, and faithful officers and agents associated with him and 
under his control. 

"It has, I think, been clearly shown within the last two years that the 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 139 

road owned and controlled by the State is a productive piece of property, 
and with proper management in future, I feel safe in the prediction that it 
will remain so and that the incomes from it will continue to increase with 
the increase of population, business, and wealth in the country. 

"So long as the road remains under my control I invite strict scrutiny 
into its management ; for I subscribe fully to the doctrine that it is proper 
to hold public functionaries to rigid accountability. And I am willing that 
judgment be pronounced upon my official conduct under the application of 
this rule. 

" In the construction of the road under State management it is not doubted 
that there were in many instances too lavish an expenditure of the public 
money, and that it cost a much larger sum than it should have cost. I am 
not prepared on that account, however, to admit that any, good reason exists 
why a State may not manage a great public work of this character with as 
much honesty, economy, and success as a corporation. To accomplish this 
object it is only necessary that the officer having the appointing power select 
agents who are competent, honest, and faithful ; that he lay down strict rules for 
the government of their conduct ; that he give so much of his individual atten- 
tion to the work as will enable him to know whether or not those rules are 
violated ; and, in every case where he discovers he has been deceived in the 
selection of a proper agent, or, where an agent has palpably violated the 
rules laid down for his government, that he may have the moral firmness 
and nerve without regard to personal considerations, to apply the corrective 
by a prompt removal. The observance of these rules is, in my opinion, a 
duty of the appointing power from which he should never shrink. If he 
performs this duty he can Seldom fail of success. 

" Regarding it as a matter of interest, I have endeavored at the expense of 
considerable labor, to ascertain the original cost of the State Road ; but I 
find it impossible, for the reasons given in the able and very valuable report 
of Col. P. Thweatt, comptroller general, who has also given much attention 
to this subject, to arrive at a conclusion with entire accm-acy. It is believed 
that the report of Mr. Garnett, then chief engineer, made in 1847 of the 
amount expended to that time is about correct. He estimates the whole cost 
to the date of his report at $3,305,165.88. Since that time there has been 
appropriated to the construction of the road, its equipments, etc., in cash and 
in the bonds of the State, the sura of $1,136,366.27. Add these sums together 
and we have 11,441,532.15 as the total amount appropriated by the Legis- 
lature, and paid out of the State treasury for the construction and equipment 
of the road. This, in my opinion, is a very near approximation to correct- 
ness. 

"I am aware that some persons, in accounting for the gross incomes of the 
road since its completion, have charged large amounts of these incomes to 
construction. These sums were, I think, generally more properly chargeable 
to repairs, &c, than to original construction. As an instance, the Etowah 



140 GOVEKNMENT OF GEOEGIA 

bridge was burned down some years after the road had been in operation, 
and it became necessary to build a new one. The cost of this could not 
properly be chargeable to original construction, but was, I think, properly 
chargeable to repairs on account of casualty. 

"A portion of the iron originally laid down on the track became so much 
worn as to be unsafe, and it was necessary to procure and lay down new iron 
Im its place. The cost of this also was properly chargeable to repairs and 
not to original construction. If a Depot building was sufficient, when the 
road was completed, to accommodate all who had business at the place, but 
which afterwards, on account of the decay of the structure or increase of 
business at the location, was found to be insufficient, and it became necessary 
to build a new one, its cost could not justly be charged to original construc- 
tion. 

" Without multiplying instances of this kind, I conclude tliat as soon as 
the Legislature had appropriated a sufficient sum to complete the road, and 
to place upon it the superstructure and machinery necessary to the transac- 
tion of the business offered by the country to the road, the original construc- 
tion account was at an end, and that all such enlargement of buildings, re- 
construction of bridges, renewals of superstructure repairs of track, &c., &c., 
as were afterwards required for the safety of transportation and ti'avel over 
the road, or for the accommodation of increased business, is properly charge- 
able to expense of keeping up the road, and not to expense of building and 
putting it into operation. Had the road remained unproductive to the 
Treasury for a quarter of a century, on account of bad crops, casualties from 
fire or flood, commercial pressure, bad management, or from any other cause, 
it could only have been evidence that the original investment was an unfor- 
tunate one for the time ; but surely the repairs made and all the State's 
losses during that time, could not, in justice to the officers afterwards in 
cliarge of the road, be properly chargeable to original cost in calculating the 
per cent, which the road might afterwards pay upon the original investment. 
Estimating the original cost, therefore, at ii,441,532 15, the road during the 
past fiscal year (ending 2i Ith October last) has paid into the treasury of the State 
nearly nine and a half per cent, upon the original investment. And it should 
not be forgotton in this connection that it was built at a time when rail- 
roading was not well understood, and that it was built as a public work, at 
a cost greatly more than would have been expended in its construction, even 
at that time, by a private company. 

" Had the same economy been used which is usually practised by private 
companies, the whole cost of the road would not probably have exceeded, if 
it even had amounted to, |3,000,000. 

" The sum paid into the treasury during the past year is fourteen per cent. 
upon that sum. In comparing the present management of the road with 
company management, it is certainly just to the present officers, who did 
not build it, to count the per cent, upon such sum only as the road should rea- 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 141 

sonably have cost had it been built by a company, and not upon such sum 
as it may have cost under the extravagant system which is sometimes prac- 
tised in the original construction of public works." 

After three years' trial, in the annual message of No- 
vember, I860,' the Governor thus states the result of the 
last year's operations : 

" It will be seen upon an examination of the report of Dr. John W. Lewis, 
the able and faithful superintendent of the State Road, that the road is in 
excellent condition in every department, and that the net amount paid into 
the State treasury for the past fi.scal year is $450,000. This sum has been 
paid into the treasury after deducting all expenditures and making all neces- 
sary repairs, and after paying $22,940 of bonds and coupons of the funded 
debt of the road, which fell due 1st January and July last, together with 
over ten thousand dollars of other old claims, which originated before the 
commencement of my term in office, and wliich had been for years in litiga- 
tion. It affords me pleasure to add that the officers of the road, in every 
department of its management, have generally been diligent and attentive 
and have acquitted themselves with much credit during the past year." 

Intee]S"al Improvements by the State. 

As early as November, 1855, Governor Johnson, while 
he announced the opinion to the Legislature that it was 
unwise and inexpedient to appropriate money or sub- 
scribe stock by the State to aid in the construction of rail- 
roads, favored the idea of " completing the skeleton of the 
system so as to extend an arm into each of the grand geo- 
graphical sections or divisions of the State, by lending her 
credit under securities and guarantees, which would place 
her beyond the contingency of ultimate liability and loss." 

He sanctioned and approved the Atlantic & Gulf 
Eoad charter, which provided for $500,000 stock by the 
State in it, while he disapproved of the plan of granting 
State aid. 

In November, 1857, he announced to the General As- 
sembly that, '-in granting new railroad charters they 
should never lose sight of the policy of protecting her 



142 GOVERNMENT OF GEOEGIA 

State Road from ruinous competition ; she should be care- 
ful not to cripple the efficacy of company roads which 
have been built by private capital ; she should preserve 
the symmetry of the system of our internal improvements, 
so that in its further development and growth to maturity 
it shall, as a primary object, promote her own wealth and 
the prosperity of her towns and seaports." 
He adds — 

" Augusta, Savannah, and Brunswick are the three points of commerce at 
which the productions of our agriculture must find their market and their 
door of exit to the marts of the world. The perfection of our internal im- 
provement system, as well as the interests of agriculture, requires that each 
of these commercial points shall be connected as directly as possible with 
each section of the State, so that all our people may enjoy a choice of markets 
for the sale of their produce. The State may aid in the construction of lines 
of road projected in reference to such connections, upon guaranties of se- 
curity that prevent the possibility of ultimate loss. Beyond this she ought 
not to go. As to the mode in which she should extend her aid, I prefer the 
loan of her credit for a given amount per mile, to a subscription for stock. 
By the former method she can secure herself by statutory lien upon the road 
and its appurtenances; whereas, by the latter, she must rely upon the suc- 
cess and profits of the enterprise." 

When Governor Brown came into office the incomplete 
railway system of the State was of paramount importance, 
and public opinion, while it favored progress and exten- 
sion of the system, was by no means harmonious as to 
the part the State should take in providing means for the 
purpose. Many people regarded the prospective profits 
as a sufficient inducement to private capital, controlled by 
intelligence, to assure the construction of all roads that 
w^ere required by commerce and travel, and that as a 
natural sequence they would be constructed in due time. 
They favored liberal charters to private companies, and 
opposed the policy of the States furnishing money or in- 
curring pecuniary obligations to build them. 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK 143 

Others regarded the matter in the light of public policy 
and the demands of the situation to keep pace with the 
improvements in progress on the east, north, and west of 
us; and the immense advantages of leading in the gen- 
eral scheme, so that this State shall have a controlling in- 
fluence in the general system of improvements, and for 
the more direct effects of equalizing the benefits among 
all the people and every section of the State ; and for the 
general enhancement of values and increase to the State 
of her sources of revenue. 

It was an issue between progressive democracy on the 
one hand, and stationary and cautious conservatism on 
the other. It was an issue to summon the decisive 
energy, and put in action the mental and moral force of 
the popular young Governor, who was in all his nature, 
his antecedents, and his impulses, as w^ell as fixed opin- 
ions, a man of progress. And the threatened evils were 
of sufficient moment to make the matter of securing the 
State one of equal importance with that of internal im- 
provements. In his first annual message he took the fol- 
lowing bold ground after reviewing the State's relations 
with existing roads. 

" Other sections of the State are still destitute of the advantages of rail-i 
road facilities. I am decidedly of opinion that it would be good policy for 
the State to lend her credit to aid in the construction of such roads as may 
be necessary to develop her vast resources, /)ro?;i(^ec; she be made perfectly 
secure beyond doubt against ultimate loss. This could be done by the en- 
dorsement of the bonds of the company, by the State, after a certain pro- 
portion of the road is first completed, for an amount sufficient to enable 
the company to purchase iron for the road. The bonds thus endorsed should be 
made payable twenty years after date, with six per cent, interest, payable 
semi-annually ; and let the State take a mortgage upon the entire road, and 
all its appurtenances, declared by law to be piior to all other liens ; to be fore- 
closed, and the road and its appurtenances sold in sixty or ninety days after 
the failure of the company to pay any instalment of either interest or prin- 
cipal when due. And in the event the whole road and its appurtenances 



144 govee:^ment of geoegia 

should fail under such mortgage sale to bring a sum sufficient to pay the 
entire amount for which the State shall have become liable, on account of the 
company, let the law provide that each solvent stockholder shall be liable to 
the State, accoiding to the number of the shares he may own, for his propor- 
tion of the deficiency. This, in my judgment, would make the State secure; 
while it would enable each company engaged in the construction of a road 
necessary to the development of the resources of the State, to obtain the 
money i-equisite to its completion, upon such time and terms as would enable 
the company, should the road prove as remunerative as its projectoi's antici- 
pated, to refund it out of the future net earnings of the road. Of course 
such a law should be a general one, alike applicable to all roads in any part 
of the State, in the benefits of which, all roads now in process of construc- 
tion, or to be hereafter projected, on equal and well defined terms, conditions 
and limitations, might participate. Guard the State against possibility of 
loss, and I am decidedly in favor of State aid, by lending her credit in the 
construction of all such roads as may be necessary to the prosperity of her 
people, and the development of her resources." 

A year later, reviewing and reiterating the opinions 
above expressed, and urging that " the law if passed 
should be a general one, giving to every company in the 
State, engaged in the construction of a railroad, the same 
aid, subject to the same liability," and elaborately arguing 
the policy, he answers one of the formidable objections 
in the following : 

"It is sometimes said that in justice to the railroad companies already in 
existence, the State should not aid or encourage the building of other roads 
. which may come in competition with those now in operation. Some of 
these companies are now making very large profits, and while I desire to see 
them prosper, and would not wish to see their dividends reduced below a 
point where the stock would be reasonably profitable, no matter how much 
other interests might be thereby promoted, I am unwilling that such sections 
of the State as are without railroads should be denied their benefits on the 
ground that the large incomes of some of the wealthy companies now in ex- 
istence might be reduced by giving these sections an opportunity to partici- 
pate in the advantages which would result to them from the construction of 
other roads. Indeed, I entertain no doubt that the interest of the people re- 
quires that the number of roads be increased till no one shall have a monop- 
oly of the business of any very large portion of the State, provided that each 
shall be left with sufficient business to make its stock reasonably renumera- 
tive. The greater the competition betwee-n the roads the lower will be 



UNDEE JOSEPH E. BEOWN. ]45 

the freight and fare, and the better for the interest of those who travel and 
ship freight over them. When there is no competition, for the purpose of 
accumulating larger incomes the freights are usually placed by the Company 
at a very high figure, and the shipper must bear the loss. 

" Again, I deny that any Company has a right to complain that injustice 
has been done it by the State should she permit or encourage the building 
of such roads as the interest of her people in diflFerent sections require, which 
do not in any manner violate the chartered rights of such company. Most 
of our railroad charters contain guaranties to the respective companies that 
no lateral road shall be built within a certain number of miles of the road of 
the company to which the guaranty is given ; say twenty miles, as an in- 
stance. These corporations claim that the charter is a contract between the 
State and the company, and they cling with tenacity to every chartered 
right given them by this contract, and exercise it, if profitable, no matter 
how onerous its exercise by them may be to other interests in the State. 
They should therefore be content with the contract; and should not be 
heard to complain when the State exercises rights reserved by her when she 
granted to them their charters. The State, in the case above supposed, as 
an instance, when she granted the charter, guarantied to the company an 
exclusive right over a strip of her territory forty miles wide. With this 
guaranty they were content, accepted the charter, invested their money, and 
built the road. The interest of a large number of persons outside of the lim- 
its embraced in the guaranty probably afterwards requires that they have a 
road ; the State encourages its construction and it is built. What injustice 
is done to the first company and how have they been deceived? They have 
the full measure of their rights, and the full benefits of what they insist upon 
as their contract. It is true, they may not have so large a monopoly as they 
desire, but they have all they contracted for, while another portion of the 
State is developed, and the people have the benefits of low freights resulting 
from the competition. 

" The State has taken stock in two railroad companies. I oppose this 
policy, and do not think she should be a partner with her citizens in such an 
enterprise. My opinion is that she should have no interest in any property 
over which she has not the entire control. By endorsing the bonds of the 
company, with ample security, she complicates herself with none of its pri- 
vate management or afiiairs. " 

The policy recommended was never fully adopted ; the 
intervention of war operated to impede the progress of 
internal improvement as well as public and common school 
education. No general bill such as that recommended by 
Governor Brown was passed after the war. The Georgia 

10 



146 GOVERNMENT OE GEORGIA 

Air Line road, chartered in 1856, obtained from the Legis- 
lature in 1868 an act to lend the credit of the State to 
that enterprise, upon the plan of Governor Brown, as to 
the security of the State against loss by first mortgage 
lien, and the endorsement of the State of the bonds of the 
company. Numerous bills of like character in favor of 
other roads were enacted. But, unfortunately for the 
State, she wanted the sagacity, care, vigilance, and firm- 
ness of Governor Brown to protect her against gross 
frauds, as will appear in the history of the administration 
of Governor Rufus B. Bullock, from July, 1868, to Octo- 
ber, IBTl. 

Common School Education. 

On account of the revolution in public opinion and feel- 
ing in the last twenty years in this Slate, which presents 
so widely different a situation now from what we know to 
have existed then ; and on account of what has actually 
been achieved in general and popular education in the 
last decade ; and in view of the neglect of previous Legis- 
latures to provide any system of public education that de- 
served the name, it is difficult to realize and appreciate 
the forecast and liberal views of the Governor, and the 
boldness with which he pressed upon the Legislature the 
subject of common school education. 

While he set his head and bent all his energies to the 
subject of retrenchment, economy, and reform in every de- 
partment and all the details of government, and to the 
most rigid scrutiny into everything to be supported or 
paid for by the State, wherein a dollar might be saved, 
he exhibited views and plans for the education of the 
people of the State that were by many regarded as prof- 
ligate and extravagant, not to say visionary ; and brought 
them before the Legislature at the end of the first year of 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BEOWK 147 

his administration ; which are set forth in the following 
extract from his message of November, 1868. 

" The public debt of the State amounts at present to $2,630,500, payable at 
different times during the next twenty years. A large portion of this debt 
has been contracted from time to time on account of the State Road. This 
debt, it will be remembered, is subject by legislation, already had, to be in- 
creased $900,000 on account of the State's subscription for stock in the At- 
lantic & Gulf Railroad Company. This would make the whole debt f3,- 
530,500, should no part of it be redeemed before the bonds of the State for 
the above mentioned $900,000 shall have been issued. By the terms of the 
contract with the bondholders, $289,500 of this debt is now subject to be 
paid at the option of the State, though payment cannot be demanded till 
1863 and 1868. The Central Bank bonds are also falling due in considerable 
sums annually. Good faith requires that the debts of the State be promptly 
met when due. And sound policy dictates that such bonds as are due or .not, 
at the option of the State, be taken up as fast as she has the means. 

" The net earnings of the Western & Atlantic railroad are already pledged 
for the payment of a large portion of this debt. I therefore recommend the 
passage of an act setting apart $200 000 per annum of the net earnings of 
the road to be applied in payment and purchase of the public debt. And, in 
view of the great and acknowledged necessity existing for the education of 
the children of the State, and of the immense advantages which would result 
from the establishment of a practical common school system, I further 
recommend that a sum as large as the entire amount of the public debt be 
set apart as a permanent common school fund for Georgia, to be increased as 
fast as the public debt is diminished ; and that the faith of the State be 
solemnly pledged that no part of this sum shall ever be applied to, or appro- 
priated for, any other purpose than that of education. Let the act make it 
the duty of the Governor each year as soon as he shall have taken up the 
$200,000 of the State's bonds, to issue $200,000 of new bonds, payable at 
some distant period to be fixed by the Legislature, to the secretary of State 
as trustee of the common school fund of the State, with serai-annual interest 
at six per cent, per annum, the bonds to be deposited in the office of the 
secretary of State. As the public debt is thus annually diminished, the 
school fund will be annually increased, until the whole debt is paid to the 
creditors of the State, and the amount paid converted into a school fund. 
And as the fund is increased from year to year, the amount of interest to be 
used for school purposes will be likewise increased. 

" Should this plan be adopted, in a few years the school fund of Georgia, 
including the present fund for that purpose, would be in round numbers 
$4,000,000. The amount of interest accruing from this fund, to be expended 
in erecting school-houses and paying teachers, would be $240,000 per annum. 
I am aware of the difficulties which have been encountered by those who 



148 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

have attempted heretofore to devise a practical and equal school system for 
the State, owing in a great degree, it is believed, to the fact that portions of 
our State are very densely, while others are quite sparsely populated. But 
the fact of our inability to accomplish all we may desire is no sufficient rea- 
son why we should neglect to do that which is in our power. Probably the 
principal cause of our failure in the past is attributable to a lack of funds 
and of competent teachers. 

" With the gradual increase of the fund proposed, it is not doubted that 
the wisdom of our State would, from time to time, improve our present 
defective system till it would be so perfected as to afford the advantages of 
an education to all or nearly all the children of the State. Let the teachers 
be paid by the State, and let every free white child in the State have an 
equal right to attend and receive instruction in the public schools. Let it be 
a common school, not a poor-school system. Let the children of the richest 
and the poorest parents in the State meet in the school-room on terms of 
perfect equality of right. Let there be no aristocracy there but an aristocracy 
of color and of conduct. In other words, let every free white child in Georgia, 
whose conduct is good, stand upon an equality of right with any and every 
other one in the school-room. In this way the advantages of education might 
be gradually diffused among the people ; and many of the noblest intellects in 
Georgia, now bedimmed by poverty and not developed for want of educa- 
tion, might be made to shine forth in all their splendor, blessing both church 
and State by their noble deeds. 

" Should f 4,000,000 be insufficient to raise annually the sum required, the 
fund might be increased from the incomes of the road to any amount neces- 
sary to accomplish the object. The interest on this fund should be semi- 
annually distributed equally, among the counties, in proportion to the whole 
number of free white children in each, between six and sixteen, or of such 
other age as the Legislature may designate. Authority should also be left 
with each county to tax itself, at its own pleasure to increase its school fund, 
as at present. And it should be left to the inferior court, or school commis- 
sioners of each county, to lay off the county into such school districts as will 
be most convenient to its population, having due regard to their number and 
condition. 

EDUCATION OF TEACHERS. 

" Assuming that provision will thus be made to raise all the funds neces- 
sary to build school-houses and pay the teachers to educate all the free white 
children of the State, the next question which presents itself, and perhaps 
the most important one of all, is, how shall the State supply herself with 
competent teachers ? raised in her midst and devoted to her interests and in- 
stitutions? — southern men, with southern hearts, and southern sentiments ? 

" For the purpose of educating Georgia teachers in Georgia colleges, I px'o- 
pose that the State issue her bonds payable at such distant times as the Leg- 
islature may designate, bearing interest at seven per cent, payable semi-an- 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BEOWK 149 

nually. The interest to be paid out of the net earnings of the State Road ; 
and the bonds be redeemed out of its proceeds, should it ever be sold. That 
she deliver $200,000 of these bonds to the State University at Athens, as an 
additional endowment ; $50,000 to the Georgia Military Institute, at Mari- 
etta, and $50,000 to each of the denominational Colleges in the State, in 
consideration that each of said five Colleges will bind itself to educate, 
annually, one young man as a State student for every $200 of annual interest 
which the endowment given by the State pays to the College ; furnishing 
him with board, lodging, lights, washing, tuition, and all necessary expenses 
except clothing, which might be furnished by the student himself or his par- 
ents. The interest on this $400,000 of bonds would be $28,000 per annum. 
This sum would maintain and instruct as above suggested one hundred and 
forty young men annually, being one from each county in the State, and 
two from each of the fourteen counties having the largest population, unless 
other new counties are formed. I propose that these young men be selected 
from all the counties in the State, from that class only of young men whose 
parents are unable to educate them, and that only such be selected as are of 
good moral character, industrious and attentive, who desire an education, 
and who give promise of future usefulness. That the selection be made in 
each county by a competent committee appointed by the Inferior Court, 
after an examination at some public place in the county of all such young 
men as desire to become beneficiaries, and will attend on a day to be fixed 
by the Inferior Court, after giving due notice. Let the committee be sworn 
that they will be governed in the selection by the merits of the applicant, 
without prejudice or partiality ; and that they will select no one whose par- 
ents are known to be able to give him a collegiate education without doing 
injustice to the rest of his family. And I propose that the place of any such 
student in college be supplied by another, whenever the faculty of the college 
shall certify to the inferior court of his county that he is neglecting his 
studies or failing to make reasonable progress, or that he has become ad- 
dicted to immoral habits. I propose that the State, in this manner, give to 
each of the poor young men thus selected his collegiate education, on condi- 
tion that he will enter into a pledge of honor to make teaching his profession 
in the county from which he is sent for as many years as he shall have been 
maintained and educated by the State in college ; the State permitting him 
to enjoy the incomes of his labor, but requiring him to labor as a teacher. 

" Many of these young gentlemen would, no doubt, adopt teaching as their 
profession for life. This would supply the State after a few years with com- 
petent teachers. And as these young men while teaching in various coun- 
ties in the State would prepare others to teach without going to college, pure 
streams of learning would thus be caused to flow out from the colleges, and 
be diffused among the masses of the people throughout the State. Then 
we would not so often hear the complaint that the child must unlearn at one 
school what it has taken it months perhaps to learn at another under an 



150 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

incompetent teacher. This plan is intended to equalize, as far as possible, 
the poor with the rich, by giving to as many of them as possible, at the ex- 
pense of the State, an opportunity to educate their sons in college, a privi- 
lege at present confined almost exclusively to the rich ; as poor men have 
not means to educate their sons, however deserving and promising they may 
be. 

'* Under the plan above proposed it is not intended to make a donation, 
or absolute gift to the colleges, of a single dollar of the bonds of the State. 
It is intended only to deliver the bonds to the colleges and to pay to them 
the interest, semi-annually, as a compensation for them to maintain and edu- 
cate annually, one hundred and forty young men of promise, who could in 
no other way enjoy the advantages of a liberal education ; who in turn are 
to diffuse intelligence among the great body of the people, thereby supplying 
the State with Georgia teachers well qualified td teach the youth of Georgia ; 
and who would be, at the same time, the natural friends of her institutions. 
As part of this plan I also propose that a General Superintendent of schools 
for the State be appointed with a salary sufficient to secure the best talent, 
whose duty it shall be to collect valuable information upon the subject, and 
report annually to the Executive, to be laid before the Legislature; and to 
traverse the State in every direction, visit the schools, address the people, 
and do all in his power to create a lively interest on the subject of education. 

" Carry out this plan and who can estimate its benefits on the State ? I 
regard the education of the children of the State as the grand object of 
primary importance, which should, if necessary, take precedence of all other 
questions of State policy. For I apprehend it will be readily admitted by 
every intelligent person, that the stability and permanence of our republican 
institutions hang upon the intelligence and virtue of our people. No mon- 
arch rules here ! And it is the pride of our system of government that each 
citizen at the ballot box possesses equal rights of sovereignty with every 
other one. Thanks be to our Heavenly Father, the popular voice cannot 
here be hushed in the silence of despotism, but the popular will dictates the 
laws. May it thus ever remain ! How important it is, therefore, that the 
masses of the people be educated so each may be able to read, and under- 
stand for himself, the constitution and history of his country, and to judge 
and decide for himself what are the true principles and policy of his govern- 
ment. But how much more important it is, in my opinion, that every person 
in the State be enabled to read for him or herself the Holy Bible, and to 
comprehend the great principles of Christianity, in the eternal truths of 
which, I am a firm, though humble believer. Educate the masses and in- 
culcate virtue and morality, and you lay broad and deep, in the hearts of 
our people, the only sure foundation of republican liberty and religious 
toleration ; the latter of which is the brightest gem in the constitution of 
our country. 

" By adopting the proposed line of policy we have it in our power, with- 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWN. 151 

out increase of taxation or burden to our people, to place Georgia, so far as 
education is concerned, in the proudest position of any State iu the Union. 
Let her educate every son and daughter within her limits, and she may then 
justly boast that she is the Empire State of not only the South, but of the 
whole Union. By this plan the public debt would be reduced, and the 
school fund increased, annually, ^200,000 ; and the interest amounting yearly 
to $28,000 on the bonds delivered to the colleges, would be paid semi- 
annually, out of the net earnings of the State road; and there would still 
be left an annual income from that source of ^72,000, to be applied to other 
purposes." 

The Legislature did not adopt the plan of the Governor, 
but took what was then regarded as an important step in 
the matter of public education. The State's bank stock, 
consisting of 1833 shares of the stock of the Bank of the 
State of Georgia; 890 shares of the Bank of Augusta; 
186 shares of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Co., 
by Act of the Legislature of January, 1852, had been set 
apart, as a permanent fund, for the education of the poor. 
The Legislature to which this message was addressed, 
added thereto an annual appropriation of $100,000 of the 
net earnings of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, to be 
apportioned to the white children of the counties returned 
between the ages of eight and eighteen years. 

His views expanded with the increase of intensity of 
his mind and emotions upon the subject of education, and 
as official duty and experience brought him to the con- 
templation of the subject in its limitless importance to 
the welfare of the people, and their descendants in the fu- 
ture. 

The disaster of civil war intervened to prevent the 
consummation of his plans. But justice to a noble and far- 
seeing patriotism and statesmanship, whose aims were thus 
thwarted and their grand results withheld from the peo- 
ple of the State, calls for the brief statement of his scheme 
for the promotion of the higher grades of learning, pre- 



152 GOYEKNMENT OF GEOEGIA 

sented to the General Assembly in November, 1860, by 
the permanent and liberal endowment of the 

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. 

" The far seeing wisdom of those who framed our State constitution not 
only grasped but fully comprehended the importance of promoting the Arts 
aud Sciences when they inserted in that instrument the following clause: 

" * The Arts and Sciences shall be promoted in one or more seminaries of 
learning ; and the Legislature shall, as soon as may be, give such further do- 
nations and privileges to those already established (the State University was 
then established), as may be necessary to secure the objects of their insti- 
tution.' 

" This is still a portion of the constitution, which I, and each of you, have 
sworn to ' observe, conform to, support, and defend.' Have the spirit and 
intention of this provision of the constitution been carried into effect by the 
Legislature in the meagre endowment which the State University has received 
from the State ? Have the objects for which the University was instituted 
been secured? If not, is the State not abundantly able to carry the spirit 
and intention of the constitution into effect without embarrassment to her 
government or burden to her people? If so, can we consistently, with the 
oaths which we have taken, refuse to make the necessary appropriation? 
These are questions well worthy the serious consideration of each and every 
one of us. But, aside from any obligation which the constitution imposes 
upon us, can we doubt the wisdom and sound statesmanship of such a course ? 
I cannot think that it is sound policy for Georgia to refuse to endow her 
University, while her people send out of the State in a few years for the 
education of their children a sum of money more than sufficient to make the 
endowment which would be necessary to draw large numbers of the youths 
of other States to our University to be educated. This would cause Georgia 
to receive the money of other States, for the education of their childi-en, 
instead of paying her money to other States for the education of her own. 

" That State is always the most wealthy, powerful, and respected in which 
knowledge is most generally diffused and learning in all its branches most 
liberally encouraged. We cannot doubt that England is indebted in a very 
great degree to her Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and to the influ- 
ences which have gone out from them, for her ability to dictate laws to a 
large portion of the world and to draw wealth from every quarter of the 
globe. Nor can we deny that Massachusetts by her liberal course towards 
her Cambridge, and Connecticut by her liberality to Yale College, have greatly 
enlarged their wealth at home and increased their influence abroad ; and 
have been able through the instrumentality of their Universities to instil 
into the youthful minds of the educated of all the other States of the Union 
many of their own peculiar notions of religion and government, while they 
have drawn millions of money from other States for the educatix)n of their 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BROWK. 153 

children. Georgia has contributed largely to build up Northern colleges, 
and has purchased from them, or those educated by them, most of her text 
and school books and much of her literature. Most of those Northern col- 
leges, which have shared so largely the Southern patronage, are now hostile 
to Southern institutions. Notwithstanding all this they still get Georgia 
patronage, because it is believed they can furnish educational advantages 
superior to those offered by Georgia colleges. This might not now have 
been the case had the money sent out of Georgia by parents and guardians 
for education beenexpended at our own University. Is it not time we had 
learned wisdom by experience? We claim that ours is the Empire State of 
the South. Why then should we refuse to endow and build up our University 
where the sons of the South may enjoy educational advantages equal, if not 
superior, to those offered by New England colleges; where authors may be 
reared and literature and school books produced which will enlighten and 
elevate the minds of our youths without subjecting them to abolition taint or 
New England fanaticism ? 

" After mature deliberation upon this question, I feel it my duty to recom- 
mend the appropriation of five hundred thousand dollars, to be paid in five 
annual instalments, of one hundred thousand dollars each, for the endow- 
ment of our State University. This sum, added to the present endowment, 
would be sufficient to construct the buildings, pui'chase the library and ap- 
paratus, and endow the professorships, necessary to make it, in a few years, 
a first class University; and would further enable the trustees to pay such 
salaries as would command the services of the most distinguished professors 
in the country. This would at once give the University a commanding po" 
sition in the Southern States, and relieve us from the necessity of further 
patronising Northern Colleges. I think the heart of every Georgian should 
swell with pride at the contemplation. And I do not doubt, when the ques- 
tion shall be fully discussed before our people, that they will be found to be 
in advance of most of our politicians upon this subject. He who does right 
will seldom have cause to fear the popular verdict. 

" The aggregate taxable propei'ty of this State is supposed to be, this year, 
about ^700,000,000. The seventieth part oi one percent, upon this sum, will 
raise, annually, the $100,000. This will be a fraction less than one cent and 
a half, per annum, on each one hundred dollars' worth of taxable property, 
or a fraction over seven cents on each one hundred dollars of taxable property, 
to be paid in Jive annual instalments. 

"What Georgian is so destitute of State pride, apart from every considera- 
tion of patriotism and sense of duty, that he would refuse to pay this small 
sum to see our State University fully endowed, for all time to come, and put 
in a position of equality with any University in the Union ? I think I know 
the great masses of the farmers and mechanics of our State, who are its very 
bone and sinew, and upon whom every other class of citizens is dependent for 
its support, well enough to say for them, in advance, that many of our public 



154 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

men underrate their intelligence and liberality; and that not one in every 
twenty of them, who pays tax on one thousand dollars' worth of property, 
would hesitate a moment to contribute a dime and a half a year, for five years, 
for the purpose of building up a University which would place Georgia in the 
very front rank of all her Southern sisters, where the young men of the South 
who, in future, are to conduct its government, direct its energies and defend 
its honor, may be educated, without assisting by their patronage, to build up, 
elsewhere, institutions at war with our dearest rights. But it is not indis- 
pensably necessary that even the small additional tax above mentioned, 
should be collected from the people for this purpose. Each annual payment 
might be made out of the incomes of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, and 
the tax at present paid by the people of this State, be reduced within the five 
years; and we would still have money enough to meet promptly, in times of 
peace and prosperity, all the necessary expenses of the government. 

"In return for this appi-opriation, the University should be required to 
educate and maintain, from year to year, such number of poor young men as 
the Legislature which makes the appropriation, may direct. I would suggest 
that the number be one from each county in the State ; to be selected in such 
manner as the Legislature may prescribe. The young men selected as bene- 
ficiaries should be such only as have not the means to educate themselves, 
and whose parents are unable to defray the expenses of a collegiate educa- 
tion for them. Each should be required, when he enters the University, as 
a consideration for the instruction he is about to receive from the State, to 
sign a pledge of honor, that he will, if not providentially prevented, teach 
school, in Georgia, as many years next after he leaves the University as he 
was instructed in the University, or refund to the State the money expended 
in his education with lawful interest. The benefits of a collegiate educa- 
tion should not be confined to the sons of the wealthy ; but the State should 
provide, as far as possible, for the education of moral young men who are 
talented and promising ; and who, by reason of their poverty, are unable to 
educate themselves. From this class would rise up many of our most dis- 
tinguished and useful citizens. Many of the brightest and most intelligent 
boys in Georgia are found among the poorest and humblest of her citizens. 
Inured to labor from their infancy, when the portals of the college are 
thrown open to them, they are not unfrequently found to outstrip the more 
favored students; and afterwards, when they come to enter the arena of 
active life, they are usually more energetic and more likely to become dis- 
tinguished and useful than those whom necessity has never taught the value 
of personal exertion. Many of these young men would make teaching a pro- 
fession for life, which few of the sons of the wealthy after graduating in col- 
lege are willing to do. 

" It is generally admitted by the most intelligent and best informed, that 
the establishment of a State University of a high character would work no 
detriment to the denominational, or other colleges of the State. The gradu- 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BEOWN. 155 

ates of our other colleges, desirous of pursuing their studies beyond the col- 
lege course, and of fitting themselves, by still higher attainments in learning, 
for the duties of authors, professors, etc., would transfer themselves to our 
own University without being under the necessity of leaving our own State 
to secure the necessary advantages. The building up of the University, upon 
the plan proposed, would also do much to advance our common school pro- 
ject, as it would send out in a few years a large number of young men as 
teachers, truly southern in sentiment and well qualified for the position. 
This would supply, in a great measure, what is now a lamentable deficiency, 
and would elevate and give new life and vigor to our whole educational 
system." 

In the same message, the Governor recommended a 
normal school for the education of female teachers, upon 
the plan, " that the girls educated there divide among 
themselves and do in their turn all the cooking, washing, 
and other labor necessary to be done at the school. 
Each would be required to furnish her own clothes. The 
actual cost of maintaining each in the school would there- 
fore be the prime cost of the provisions used by each, to- 
gether with books, lights, and fuel. At this school, which 
should be located in some healthy portion of our State, 
large numbers of young females, whose parents are una- 
ble to educate them, might be prepared to teach our pri- 
mary schools, or indeed to teach in any of our schools. 
While receiving their scholastic education at the normal 
school, these young ladies would also receive a domestic 
education, which would be of great utility to them in any 
position which they might occupy in after life." 

In all the brilliant career of Governor Brown, there 
appears at this day to the writer nothing that invests his 
sagacity with the appearance of prophetic wisdom 
like this of educating women without elevating their 
tastes, habits, and dispositions above useful labor, and 
without lowering their physical capabilities below its de- 
mands. If his theory could then have been applied to 



156 GOVEENMENT OF GEOEGIA 

the education of both girls and boys, in all the South, we, 
as a people, should not only have been infinitely better 
prepared for the demands and prevention of war, while 
raging, but for the situation after emancipation, which 
summoned us to self-sustenance and self-dependence. 

In his zealous advocacy of a common school system of 
education, and for the education of teachers he was only 
in advance, but in strict harmony, with his predecessor 
Governor Johnson, who, in his retiring message, urged the 
subject in strong terms upon the consideration of the 
Legislature, as well as the claims of the St§,te University 
for the promotion of learning in the advanced sciences. 
He says, " we need a University proper. Such its founders 
designed our State college to be, and the constitution, as 
I have shown, has made it obligatory on the General As- 
sembly to carry that design into effect." 

*UL ^ 4(> ^ ^U •S^ 

^p tF "JF "7? "JP •w 

He says, further quoting the Constitution : — 

" What has been done to carry into effect this clause of your Constitution? 
How little ? It has reference mainly to the State University, which had been 
chartered in 1875. Hence, it is obvious, that it is the sworn duty of the Gen- 
eral Assembly to place our State University upon the footing contemplated 
by its wise and patriotic founders, or in other words, ' give it such dona- 
tions and privileges as may be necessary to secure the objects of its institu- 
tion.' Indeed, the whole subject of education is coniided to the General 
Assembly, with the positive injunction to such action as may be proper to 
supply the wants of the State. That contracted policy which is ever stand- 
ing at the door of the Treasury, with a flaming two-edged sword, is but lit- 
tle better than moral treason to the Constitution, which, for more than half 
a century, has been pleading for conformity on the part of those who swear 
to obey. Education is the friend of the State. It will elevate the people. 
It -will diminish crime and the expense of executing the laws. It will raise 
out the poor from the mire into which innocent poverty has sunk them, and 
place them on an intellectual equality with the favored sons of fortune. It 
will dig from the mine many an unpolished gem to glitter in the crown of 
cultivated society. It will stimulate enterprise, and direct its energies to 
profitable objects. It will dignify labor, and open new channels for capital. 



UNDER JOSEPH E. BEOWN. 157 

Ifc will disinter the mineral wealth of the State, and add millions to the pro- 
ductions of agriculture. It will bring into the field of science an array of 
mind that will adorn our escutcheon, and dazzle the world by" its achieve- 
ments. In a word, Georgia must fail of her great mission without the adop- 
tion of a wise and comprehensive educational policy. Away, then, with that 
narrow stinginess which begrudges a dollar to such a cause, while it is often 
wasteful of thousands upon objects that possess little or no merit. Go for- 
ward boldly, firmly, liberally, to meet the wants of the State. Adjust your 
scheme to the character of our population. Apply to the task your wisest 
deliberations. Impart to it the element of self-vindication and self-support. 
Make it simple in its details, and dependent, for its success and growth, upon 
the voluntary support of the people." 

He suggested a plan in pursuance of these views which 
the General Assembly did not adopt. 



CHAPTER IV. 

State Geologist and Chemist. 

After two years of executive experience, Governor 
Brown, whose vast and extensive perception and fore- 
cast seem to have extended to every possible method of 
promoting the material interest of the State, and develop- 
ment of her internal resources, brought this subject forci- 
bly to the attention of the Legislature, and to the people 
of the State. In November, 1860, he renewed the appeal 
in the following strong terms. His plans in, this, as in 
other vast interests, were defeated or delayed by the in- 
tervention of war. 

" I also renew my recommendation of last year, for the appointment of a 
State geologist and chemist. Probably few of our citizens living in other sec- 
tions of the State have formed a correct estimate of the immense value of 
the mineral region of Georgia. It is believed that the quantity of iron ore, of 
the very best quality, within her borders, is sufficient to supply the demand 
of all the Southern States, for that most important of all metals, for centu- 
ries to come. This ore is chiefly found in a very liealthy section of the State, 
where there is abundant water power, of the finest character, and upon never 
failing streams. Thp great grain growing section of the State embraces 
these iron mines. Provisions may generally be had cheap. The coal fields 
of Georgia and Tennessee are in close proximity, and a railroad communica- 
tion is already established between the two. Lime, charcoal, and every other 
material necessary in the manufacture of iron, may be had in great abun- 
dance near the mines. I think I may truly say, that no State in the Union 
possesses superior advantages for the manufacture of iron. If this interest 
were fully developed, it would add millions to the wealth of Georgia, and M'ould 
tend greatly to increase her population. It would afford profitable employ- 
ment to a large number of laboring men, retain large sums of money in the 
State, now sent out annually for the purchase of iron ; and would make the 
State much more powerful and independent in her present or any future 
position she might be called upon to assume. 



CODE OF GEORGIA. 159 

" There are also very extensive and valuable slate quarries in this mineral 
region. One of these, in Polk county, is already being developed and 
worked to advantage by its enterprising proprietors. I commend these 
valuable interests to the protecting care of the Legislature. Gold, silver, 
copper, lead, manganese, and other valuable minerals and metals, have also 
been found in different sections of our State. Much money has been wasted 
in the search after these metals by persons lacking the necessary information 
to guide their labors in the right direction. If the energies of practical men 
engaged in the search were directed by scientific knowledge of the subject, 
results would no doubt be produced the most interesting and valuable to the 
State. To this end, the importance of a thorough geological survey of the 
State, by a man of eminent ability, cannot be too highly estimated. The 
appropriation for this purpose, if made, should be sufficient to secure the 
services of a man of the highest character in the profession. 

"To the duty of making a geological survey of the State should be added 
that of making a chemical analysis of the different qualities of soil in the 
different sections of the State ; so as to afford the planters iu each section 
necessary information as to the kinds of productions to the raising of which 
each kind of soil is best adapted, and the kind of manures best suited to each 
different quality of soil. This, it is believed, would be of great value to the 
planting interest. Certainly no class of our population has stronger claims 
upon the liberality and bounty of the Legislature ; and none has been lon- 
ger neglected. Every appropriation necessary to the advancement and en- 
couragement of agriculture should be promptly and cheerfully made by the 
Legislature." 

Code of Georgia. 

Of all the vast progress of the State under Brown there 
is no step to compare in public utility with the codifica- 
tion of her common law of force, the principles of equity, 
the British and State statutes, and the penal code, with 
all the minute regulations of all the offices and depart- 
ments of the government in one methodical and concise 
volume. It has reclaimed the laws to which the people 
are subject from the waste and rubbish of the multitudi- 
nous changes and from the vagaries and uncertainties of 
disjointed lumber scattered through acts and digests, ele- 
mentary books and judicial reports, and placed before the 
people and the officers charged with public duties one of 
the clearest and most easily to be studied and understood 



160 THE CHEISTIAN SABBATH. 

systems ever met with in judicial history. It places her 
civil on a par with her penal code, which is one of the 
most perfect because the most in harmony with human 
frailty, and the principles of man's rights to life, liberty, 
and property ever devised in any country. 

The wisdom of the Governor is, however, only manifest 
in the forecast that urged the necessity of the work, and 
in the men selected for its execution, David Irwin, Rich- 
ard H. Clark, and Thomas R. R. Cobb, to whom the code 
of Georgia is a monument that ages will brighten and 
burnish, instead of corroding and mouldering. 

The Christian Sabbath. 

The moral and religious tone of the State government 
under Governor Brown is, to the Christian philosopher 
who has witnessed the depravity in high places which has 
been so prevalent in late years, one of the truly grat- 
ifying features of her history. At an early period of life 
he had adopted a sound code of morals for his own gov- 
ernment and practices in strict accord with the code. His 
face had been set and his energies directed against all 
crimes of moral turpitude — everything that was dishonest. 

These principles of moral and legal conduct he carried 
with full vigor and energy into the public administration as 
a judge, and adhered to them, without faltering, against all 
public clamor or private abuse and criticism. It was not in 
the nature of his moral constitution to be overawed or in- 
timidated or driven from his convictions of right and wrong 
by any power or influence whatever ; and when inducted 
into the chief magistracy of the State he felt summoned by 
the higher and more weighty responsibilities of the posi- 
tion to exercise them in every department of the service. 

The General Assembly, as early as 1859, acting under 



EETEENCHMENT AND ECONOMY. 161 

his advice for the protection of the public morals, and to 
prevent the desecration of the Sabbath by the general 
preparation for elections on Monday, changed the general 
election day to Wednesday. 

At the session of 1860, the Governor took the follow- 
ing bold position which, however, he could not adhere to 
because the demands of a war of invasion made it wholly 
impracticable : — 

" The step taken at the last session for the protection of the Sabbath 
against desecration is highly commendable and praiseworthy. Another 
still more important remains to be taken. The railroad companies of this 
State are in the habit of running their regular passenger trains on the 
Sabbath day. This is generally excused on the supposed necessity of carry- 
ing the mails on that day. I do not think the ^xcuse is a sufficient one, nor 
do I think any great public necessity requires that mail service should be 
performed on the Sabbath day. The mail facilities which we enjoy on the 
other days of the week are much greater than they were a few years since, 
and are, in my opinion, quite sufficient for all the actual necessities of the 
country. I have permitted the mail trains to run on the State road, on the 
Sabbath day, in conformity to the general usage of the railroad companies 
of this State, and in obedience to the requirements of a contract with the 
post-office department which was made prior to my term in office, and 
which continued in existence the greater portion of the time since I have 
been charged with the management of the road. The practice of running 
trains on the Sabbath should, in my opinion, be prohibited by law. If it is 
wrong for the government of the State to permit the trains to run on tie 
State road on that day, it is equally wrong to allow them to run on any 
company road in the State. The General Assembly have full power to 
prevent this practice in the future. I therefore recommend the enactment 
of a law subjecting the superintendent of each and every railroad in this 
State to indictment for misdemeanor, in the superior court of the county in 
which the offence is committed ; and on conviction to fine or imprisonment, 
or both, at the discretion of the court, for each and every engine, or train, 
which shall, with his knowledge or consent, be permitted to run upon the 
road under his control, on the Sabbath day. ' Remember the Sabbath day 
to keep it holy,' is addressed alike to the legislator and to* the private 
citizen." 

Retrenchment and Economy. 

These were the ruling tenets of the civil administration 

of Governor Brown, adhered to with a moral courage 
11 



162 MILITARY ADMINISTRATION" OF GOV. BROWN. - 

that, in the face of the then potent opposition and often 
biting criticisms by political foes, and not unfrequently 
by men he displeased in his own party, rose to the height 
of sublimity, and heroic firmness. 

Not a leak at which unlawful drainage from the public 
treasury had been tolerated, no matter how respectable 
the beneficiaries, or honored the custom by age and use, 
could escape his sleepless ken, or his bold efforts to stop 
and suppress. And many things that tended to a waste 
of the public money that were authorized by law were 
assailed, and reform demanded of the Legislature; even 
to the reduction of the members and officers of that large 
and unwieldy body. In this direction he was hide-bound 
and impervious to sympathy, charity, love, affection, or 
any other method of approach to the public Treasury. 

In the opposite direction of using the public money 
and credit to aid and advance all and every enterprise or 
method of benefit and improvement to the State and peo- 
ple, which after mature and critical examination met the 
approval of his judgment, he was liberal, not to say 
profuse. 

Military Administration- of Governor Brown. 

This extends over a period of several years of peace 
prior to the revolt of the Confederate States, and through 
the four years of war that ensued. 

When he was first inaugurated, like his predecessors 
he was by the Constitution of the State invested with the 
power of Commander-in-chief of the army and navy with- 
out anything that bore the resemblance or name of either 
to command in any emergency that might have arisen, or 
that he could call into action for the protection of the 
State against invasion from without or disorder within. 



MILITARY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV BROWN". 163 

He was also by authority of the Constitution Comman- 
der-in-chief of the Militia of the State which was in a 
state of non-user and general neglect, without any pre- 
tended organization, officers, means of instruction in drill 
and tactics, or the duties of a soldier in service, and there- 
fore wholly inefficient if not useless in case any occasion 
should have arisen that required the Governor to call the 
citizen soldiers to protect the State, preserve public order, 
or to execute the public laws. The State almost literally 
had no division, brigade, regimerttal battalion, or com- 
pany officers, and no rolls of men liable to do military 
duty. Public drills and musters vaguely remembered as 
the subject of ridicule, and barren of good results as to 
military order and instruction, had in almost every 
part of the State been wholly discontinued, and nothing 
had been introduced to supply the want, leaving the 
Commander-in-chief without a force to protect the State 
except the civil officers and the posse comitatus, which 
in many places were not reliable for even local emergen- 
cies had they arisen. 

The great State of Georgia was virtually dependent, 
not on any power the Governor could have wielded, or 
any organized force for self-protection, but was dependent 
on the chances of continued peace and order without force; 
or upon the prompt voluntary action of her people for her 
protection and defence through the few amateur volun- 
teer companies in the towns and cities. 

Finding the State in this condition, and looking forward 
to the possibility of things that were precipitated soon af- 
ter, he began to press upon the people of the State, 
through the Legislature, the importance of reforms and 
changes in the militia system, and the preparation of 
the citizen soldiery for the public service. Into this, as 



164 MILITARY ADMINISTRATION" OF GOV. BROWK 

many other reforms and proposed changes, he carried his 
zeal and energy, guided by his usual forecast and sagacity. 
The magic influence was felt throughout the State as the 
early culminating dangers began to be seen in the distance ; 
and the grand result was, that Georgia sent early to the 
field of carnage, when war had been inaugurated, an ex- 
cess in number according to white population over all the 
States, north and south; and the annals of battle and 
marches, and of suffering and heroic endurance, place her 
troops in the front rank among her sister confederates 
from the beginning to the end of the strife. 

He pressed the importance of the State's military school 
at Marietta, and urged its re organization and such pub- 
lic appropriations as were needed to make it a success, 
and enlarge its usefulness in training the young men of 
the country to arms. 

He also urged the Legislature to change the militia 
laws, and to put the State in a situation to protect her- 
self, in the following strong terms : — 

" For the purpose of giving new life and energy to our military system 
which is now almost entirely neglected, the importance of affording to a por- 
tion of the youth of our State a thorough military education cannot be too 
highly appreciated. The people of many of the States of this Union are fall- 
ing behind most of the civilized nations of the earth in military training. 
Within the last twenty years the more powerful nations of Europe have 
probably advanced more in military science and skill, and in all the arts of 
war, than they had during any previous century. It is believed that no one 
will doubt the correctness of this remark who has observed attentively the 
late struggles between the contending powers in the Crimea and in Italy. 

" There is not a more brave and patriotic people on earth than those of 
the United States ; and there is probably no nation whose militia is so relia- 
ble on the field of battle; yet in this day of constant advancement in military 
science, those who depend alone upon patriotism and valor enter the field, 
even in their own defence, under great disadvantage. Should our country 
be invaded by any of the great powers of the other hemisphere, our people 
would be found at the commencement of the struggle to be almost destitute 
of military training. Until this deficiency could be supplied, they might be 



MILITAEY ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BEOWN. 165 

unable to contend with the disciplined troops of a regular army without 
great loss of life and much detriment to our national character. 

" There is probably no State in the Union, certainly not one of the old 
thirteen, in which military training is more neglected than in our own. We 
know not how soon we may be brought to the practical test of defending 
ourselves against the assaults of foreign ambition, or the more unnatural at- 
tacks of those who ought to be our brethren, but wliose fanaticism is prompt- 
ing them to a course which is daily weakening the ties that bind us together 
as one people. The father of his country has admonished us to prepare for 
war in time of peace. If we would profit by his advice it is necessary that 
we reorganize our military system. I do not hesitate to say, that the State 
should offer every reasonable inducement for the organization and training 
of volunteer military corps, as the best and most efficient mode of reviving 
the military spirit among our people. This cannot be done until she has 
made provision for arming such companies. At present, the only provision 
for this purpose is the distribution of the small quota of arms which the 
State receives annually from the General Government, and which is wholly 
inadequate to the demand. The consequence is, that many of our volunteer 
companies are without arms, while many others would be organized were it 
known that they could be supplied with suitable arn:is. 

" Frequent applications are made to this department for arms with a view 
to the organization of new volunteer companies; and when those who apply 
are informed that they cannot be supplied, all further attempts to organize 
such companies are abandoned. 

" For the purpose of encouraging the organization of volunteer corps, I 
recomn^end that all laws now in force requiring the performance of military 
service other than that performed by volunteer corps be suspended, except 
in case of insurrection or invasion; and that a commutation tax be assessed 
and collected from each person of twenty-one years of age, or upwards, who 
is subject to do military duty in the State, and who is not a member of 
an organized volunteer corps which drilled at least once a month through- 
out the year preceding the collection of the tax. This tax should be 
large enough to raise a sum sufficient to arm the entire volunteer force of 
the State with the latest and most approved style of arms. As soon as a 
sufficient sum shall be collected in this way, I recommend, as a means of 
procuring the contemplated arms, that it be expended in the erection at some 
suitable location in the State of a State foundry for the manufacture of 
arms and other munitions of war. This would make the State much more 
independent in case of emergency. The God of nature has supplied us, in 
rich profusion, with all the materials necessary to the accomplishment of this 
purpose. 

" If ample provision were made for arming our volunteers, they would 
exhibit much military pride; and the young gentlemen educated at our State 
military institute would, in all probability, be elected to the command of 



1G6 MILITAEY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BROWN. 

many of the companies, who would bring into practical operation, in training 
our militia, the science and skill which they have acquired at the institute. In 
case of war, we could then bring into the field a large force of well-trained 
volunteers, commanded by officers of thoroixgh military education, who 
would, in almost every case, be natives of our soil. Our untrained militia, 
if called into the field, with such a force and such officers at their head, would 
at once become infused with the military spirit, and soon with much of the 
military skill, of the volunteers, and would constitute with them an invinci- 
ble army." 

Again he says, in urging the claims of the military 
institute, and his plans for its success : — 

" Tt would not only put the institute upon a solid basis, and add largely to the 
number of educated persons in our State, affording a collegiate education to 
many of the poorest, though brightest and most intellectual boys in Georgia, 
but would diffuse a knowledge of military science among the people of every 
county in the State; which all must admit, in these perilous times, is a 
desideratum second in importance to no other. 

" We should not only arm our people, but we should educate them in the 
use of arms, and the whole science of war. We know not how soon we may 
be driven to the necessity of defending our rights and our honor, by militai-y 
force. Let us encourage the development of the rising military genius of our 
State; and guide, by the lights of military science, the energies of that 
patriotic valor which nerves the stout heart and strong arm of many a young 
hero in our midst who is yet unknown to fame." • 

Following these vigorous and bold enunciations in his 
general message of November, 1860, he urged the erec- 
tion of a foundry for the manufacture of arms and other 
munitions of war, and an arsenal for the arms of the State. 

The bold and dauntless spirit of the Governor, who had 
the unrestricted confidence of the masses of the people, 
produced a revolution in the public mind, not only of 
opinion, but sentiment and feeling, upon the matter 
of the public preparation for defence, and the prompt use 
of the citizen soldiery of the State, not only with refer- 
ence to the then possibility of a conflict with the Northern 
people, but to the public defence from foreign assaults, as 
well as internal disorder. 



MILITAKY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BEOWK 167 

The people began to wake up from the many years of 
stupor and carelessness and inactivity in military matters. 
They knew with certainty that they had the blood of 
brave ancestry in their veins ; that they individually were 
endowed with dauntless courage that prepared them for 
the imminent deadly breach, and for any feats of daring 
to which the public duty or private demands of personal 
honor might summon them. 

But they realized an almost total want of the knowl- 
edge of arms and of war, in any organized method of 
their U!«e, as well as of discipline and drill in camp and 
field. Men of individual courage, but strangers to the 
magic power and effect of discipline, drill, and the 
harmonious movements of large bodies of men in uni- 
form. Skilled in the single use of the rifle, they knew 
not its potency by the regiment and corps, under 
simultaneous obedience to orders. 

The patriotic spirit of the Governor was caught by 
the people, and reflected by their representatives in the 
Legislature. And large numbers of volunteer companies 
were organized in the towns and cities, and incorporated 
by law, with liberal provision for arms at the expense 
of the State. 

In the course of his three years of administration prior 
to the election of Abraham Lincoln, which was followed 
by prompt action on the part of several slaveholding 
States to secede from the Union, the Governor of Georgia 
had rapidly advanced from the position of a young and in- 
experienced mountaineer to that of a front and control- 
ling rank among Southern governors and statesmen. In 
this position he combined the rare qualities that had en- 
abled him to leap to it so soon : superior ability, sleep- 
less energy, unequalled forecast, boldness, full confidence 



168 MILITAEY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BROWN. 

in the great results, patriotic devotion to his section and 
State and ardent love of her people, ambition for fame 
to be achieved by faithful and beneficial public service, 
and the esteem and admiration of the people towards 
him. Under his lead, it was natural for his State to 
hold an important and controlling influence over the course 
of the Southern people in the then approaching crisis 
of their relations with the Federal government, and 
States of the North. The communications of her Gov- 
ernor, in connection with the published opinions of her 
leading statesmen holding office at Washington, were 
read and accepted in this State, and in every part of the 
South by men not disposed to submit to Northern aggres- 
sion. And they exercised a vast and rapid influence in 
preparing the public mind for, and raising the public 
temper to the point of, armed resistance and organized 
preparations for the public safety. 

On the assembling of the Legislature, when the result 
of the presidential contest was not reached, the Governor 
transmitted the invitation of South Carolina to all the 
Southern States to meet in convention to " concert meas- 
ures for united action," which had been accepted by the 
States of Mississippi and Alabama, and declined by Vir- 
ginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas. He advised 
against this movement because so few States would be 
represented in it, and therefore but little good could 
be expected to result from it. 

In the same special message he used the following 
pointed language : — 

"If it is ascertained that the Black Republicans have triumphed over us, I 
recommmend the call of a Convention of the people of the State at an early 
day ; and I will cordially unite with the General Assembly in any action, 
which, in their judgment, may be necessary to the protection of the rights 
and the preservation of the liberties of the people of Georgia against the 



MILITARY ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BROWN. 169 

further aggressions of an enemy, which, when flushed with victory, will be 
insolent in the hour of triumph. 

"For the purpose of putting this State in a defensive condition as fast as 
possible, and preparing for an emergency which must be met sooner or later, 
I recommend that the sum of one million of dollars be immediately appropri- 
ated as a military fund for the ensuing year; and that prompt provision be 
made for raising such portion of the money as may not be in Treasury as 
fast as the public necessities may require its expenditure. ' Millions for 
defence, but not a cent for tribute,' should be the future motto of the South- 
ern States. 

" To every demand for further concession, or compromise of our rights, we 
should reply, * The argument is exhausted,' and we now ' stand by our 
arms.' " 

This message was sent to them on November 7th, and 
on the 16th the Governor approved a bill appropriating 
11,000,000 as a military fund for the year 1861, " for the 
protection of the rights and preservation of the liberties 
of the people of Georgia," '* to be expended by the 
Governor in such manner as he may deem best for the 
purpose of placing the State in a condition of defence," 
etc. 

In this special message on federal relations prepared 
pending the presidential contest, he presented the subject 
of the violation of constitutional obligations by several 
of the Northern States by the passage of severe laws 
against reclamation of fugitive slaves, as required by the 
Constitution of the United States, and provided for by Act 
of Congress, and argued the matter with great ability and 
at length; and recommended retaliatory legislation on the 
part of this State. But the election of Mr. Lincoln trans- 
pired ; and the General Assembly adopted the plan of call- 
ing a State convention, and providing for military defence 
as recommended in that contingency. 



CHAPTER V. 

Secession of Cotton-Growing States, and Organi- 
zation OF THE Confederacy. 

The seventh day of November, A. D., IS 60, the na- 
tional election day, to which the people of the United 
States, divided in interest and consequently in opinion 
and feeling, looked anxiously, had dawned upon us. Its 
sun had risen with bright beams of hope and promise to 
the infatuated and aggressive majority section. But a 
deep gloom and oppressive foreboding had settled on the 
great popular heart in the South. Conscious of numeri- 
cal weakness, as the North was of strength, the bitter cup 
seemed about to be presented to the unwilling lips of the 
Southern people ; to drink which portended political death; 
to refuse and repel it was to change the strife from the 
forum to the tented field of war ; from the hitherto peace- 
ful and harmless play of the ballot to that of the direful 
bayonet and bullet ; to replace the eloquence of the hust- 
ings and legislative hall by the tread of armed legions, 
and the hoarse music of artillery and muskets. Two great 
peoples, long bound together by common ties of mutual 
interest and protection, still held together by the tenure 
of law and organized government, had grown into im- 
mense sectional factions, and feeling themselves separate 
and distinct, in interest, in aims, and destiny, were about 
to argue with each other, with lead instead of logic, the 
vexed problems the latter had failed to solve ; were about 
to reach a final analysis in the flow of the blood of broth- 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 171 

ers. The love that had long warmed the national heart, 
and blended the once weak and dependent sections in a 
common and apparently indissoluble tie of friendship and 
union, was already in great part changed into hatred as 
intense as the human heart and mind can feel without 
special individual insult and injury. 

The people of the South approached the polls of the 
election with a seriousness and earnestness becoming the 
great crisis which had been reached. Some believed that 
defeat in the election was a foregone conclusion ; others 
trusted that an overruling Providence would give some di- 
rection to the raging storm which would be compatible 
with the safety and honor of our section and people, while 
many were credulous enough to believe that their respect- 
ive candidates would be elected. But within a few hours 
after the ballotings had ceased, the telegrams displaced 
ail doubts, and broke to the Southern mind the awful 
truth — that Abraham Lincoln, the nominee and standard 
bearer of the great Northern Republican party, was, by 
a triumphant majority vote in the electoral college, the 
president elect of the United States. 

The pause that ensued was awful but brief; the shock 
was overpowering and the effects visible upon all classes 
of our people. But the chilled blood which had returned 
to the heart, leaving paleness to the cheek and bringing 
tremor to the nerves, soon reacted under the smart of 
wounded honor, and resumed its course of circulation 
with double speed. Where lately sat a shadow of dread 
and gloom, now presented to every beholder a look of 
defiance. Where hesitation and doubt had given a sickly 
cast to every effort and action, now all was alive with 
fixed purpose and resolution. 

The telegrams which announced to the South the tri- 



172 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES. 

"umph of the Republicans were almost instantaneously 
responded to by the announcement that the legislative 
councils of the States of the Soath, in session, were call- 
ing the people together in State conventions to consider 
the mode and measure of their safety. And the Execu- 
tives of those States whose Lesjislatures were not in 
session were calling them to assemble for the same pur- 
pose. There was an earnestness patent upon the face of 
the bulletins of that time which could not fail to impress 
the victors of the ballot-box that their triumph was not 
complete ; and that a great barrier to their aims was soon 
to be set up in the form of a concentration on the part of 
the cotton States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas to withdraw 
from the Union and organize a separate government ; 
and a strong probability that the mother of States and 
statesmen, the cradle and grave of heroes, old Virginia, 
would ally herself with her Southern sisters ; and that 
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas would follow ; 
with a reasonable probability that Kentucky, Missouri, 
and Maryland would sooner or later cast their fortunes 
with us. The time to intervene between the election of 
Mr. Lincoln, the 7th of November, and the 4th of March 
when he was to be installed into office and invested with 
the executive authority of the government, was not quite 
four months. Hence the time given by the State Legis- 
latures for popular deliberations was short, they being 
impressed with the belief that prompt and immediate 
decision was necessary in the then emergency of the 
country. 

We have already sketched the reasons and considera- 
tions moving the people to action, in which, seemingly by 
a general consent, the lead was awarded to South Caro- 



OEGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDEEACY. 173 

lina. Her sterling purpose for many years past to' resist 
the encroachments of Federal authority, and the promi- 
nence which her debates had given her, and the general 
confidence in the sincerity of her statesmen, and the virtue 
and fidelity of her people, seem to have awarded to that 
State the front rank in the movement of secession. Her 
ordinance of secession was adopted on the 20th of Decem- 
ber, A. D., 1860 ; that of Mississippi on the 9th, and Ala- 
bama and Florida on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th, 
Louisiana on the 26th of January, A. D., 1861, and that of 
Texas on the first day of February. 

The aggregate vote of the people against the candi- 
dates who were in favor of immediate and separate State 
action, as well as the vote of delegates in some of the 
State conventions, was large. The actions of the conven- 
tions were generally made unanimous, or nearly so, after a ' 
test vote had been taken and the decision of the respective 
States for secession clearly ascertained. By which course 
the dissenting delegates gave in their adhesion to the will 
of the majority, and avowed their purpose to adhere to 
and defend the States to which they respectively be- 
longed. In which example they were generally followed 
by the dissenting people at home. The mode adopted by 
the several seceding States to give effect to the purpose 
of secession was to pass in their several conventions an 
ordinance repealing the ordinance by which they became 
attached to the Federal Union. To illustrate this form of 
proceeding we annex here a copy of the ordinance passed 
by the Georgia convention : — 



174 SECESSION OF COTTOIT-GROWING STATES. 
AN ORDINANCE 

To DISSOLVE THE UnION BETWEEN THE StATE OF GEORGIA AND OTHER 
StATKS united with her under a COMPACT OF GOVERNMENT EN- 
TITLED " THE Constitution of the United States of America." 

We, the people of the Slate of Georgia, in convention assembled, do declare and 
ordain, and it is hereby declarcl and ordained, 

That the ordinance adopted by the people of the State of Georgia in con- 
vention, on the second day of January, in the year of our Lord seventeen 
hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of 
America was assented to, ratified, and adopted; and also all acts and parts 
of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amend- 
ments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated. 

We do further declare and ordain. That the Union now subsisting between 
the State of Georgia and other States, under the name of the "United 
States of America," is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in 
the full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong 
and appertain to a free and independent State. 

On the motion of Judge Nesbit, the author of the ordi- 
nance, it was engrossed on parchment, signed by the 
delegates, and deposited in the archives of the State. 
The following is a list of the convention, those voting 
against the ordinance marked with a * the balance 
voting for it. The vote stood 208 to 89. 

Appling — Seaborn Hall, J. H. Latimer. 
Banks— *\\\ R. Bell, S. W. Pruett. 
Baker — A. H. Colquitt, C. D. Hammond. 
Baldwin — *A. H. Kenan, L. H, Briscoe. 
Berrien — *W. J. Mabry, J. C. Lamb. 
Bibb — Washington Foe, John B. Lamar, E. A. Nisbet. 
Brooks — C. S. Gaulden, Henry Briggs. 
. Bryan — C. C. Slater, J. P. Hines. 

Bulloch — S. L. Moore, Samuel Harville. 
• Burke — E. A. Allen, |}. B. Gresham, W. B. Jones. 
Butts — D. J. Bailey, Henry Hendricks. 
Camden — N. J. Patterson, F. jM. Adams. 
Campbell— 3. M. Cantrell, T. C. Glover. 
Calhoun— W. G. Sheffield, E. Padgett. 
Carroll — B. W. Wright, B. W. Hargrave, Allen Rowe. 
Cass—*\Y. T, Wofford, *H. F. Price, *T. H. Tnppe. 
Ca/oosa— *Presley Yates, J T. McConnell. 



OEGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDEEACY. 175 

Charlton— *F. M. Smith, H. M. Mershon. 

Chatham — F. S. Bartow, A. S. Jones, John W. Andersoa. 

Chattooga — *Wesley Shropshire, *L. Williams. 

Cherokee— W. A. Teasley, E. E. Fields, John McConnell. 

Clark — T. R. R. Cobb, Asbury Hull, Jefferson Jennings. 

Clayton — *R. E. Morrow, James F. Johnston. 

Clay—W. H. C. Davenport, B. F. Burnett. 

Clinch — Benjamin Sermons, F. G. Ramsey. 

Cohh—G. D. Rice, A. A. Winn, E. H. Lindley. 

Coffee— *Ro\vSin Pafford, *J. H. Frier. 

Columbia— W. A. S. Collins, H. R. Casey, R. S. Neal. 

Colquitt — H. C. Tucker, John G. Coleman. 

Coweta— A. B. Calhoun, J. J. Pinson, W. B. Shell. 

Crawford — W. C. Cleveland, Isaac Dennis. 

Dade—*S. C. Hale, *R. M. I'ariss. 

Dawson— *Alh-ed Webb, *R. H. Pierce. 

Decatur — Richard Simms, C. J. Munnerlyn, B. H. Gee. 

De Kalb— Charles Murphy, *G. K. Smith. 

Dooly — John S. Thomas, Elijah Butts. 

D lugherty — Richard H. Clark, C. E. Mallary. 

Early — R. W. Sheffield, James Buchanan. 

Echols — Harris Tomlinson, J. B. Prescott. 

Effingham — E. W. Solomons, A. G. Porter. 

Elbert— J. C. Burch, L. H. O. Martin. 

Emanuel — *A. L. Kirkland, *John Overstreet. 

Fannin— *W. C. Fain, E. W. Chastain. 

Fayette— U. M. Tidwell, J. L. Blalock. 

Floyd — James Ward, Simpson Fouche, F. C. Shropshire. 

For.s'^^^— Hardy Strickland, *H. P. Bell. 

Franklin — *John H. Patrick, *Samuel Knox. 

Fulton — J. P. Alexander, L. J. Glenn, J. P. Logan. 

Glasscock — Joshua F. Usry, Calvin Logue. 

(jiVmer—* Joseph Pickett, *W. P. Milton. 

Gordon — W. H. Dabney, *James Freeman, R. M. Young. 

Greene—^. M. Crawford, R. J. Willis, T. N. Poullain. 

Gioinnett—'^Vi. D. Winn, *J. P. Simmons, *T. P. Hudson. 

Habersham — R. C. Ketchum, Singleton Sisk. 

Hall—*E. M. Johnson, *P. M. Byrd, *Davis Whelchel. 

Hancock — *Linton Stephens, B. T. Harris, T. M. Turner. 

Haralson— W. J. Head, B. R. Walton. 

Harris— D. P. Hill, W. J. Hudson, H. D. Williams. 

Hart-R. S. Hill, J. E. Skelton. 

He'ird—*R. P. AVood, *C. W. Mabry. 

Henry— *F. E. Manson, *E. B. Arnold, J. H. Low. 



176 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES. 

Houston— 3. M. Giles, D. F. Gunn, B. W. Brown. 
Irwin — M. Henderson, *Jacob Young. 
Jackson— J. J. McCulloch, J. G. Titman, U. R. Lyle. 
Jasper — *Aris Newton, *Reuben Jordan, Jr. 
Jefferson — *H. V. Johnson, *George Stapleton. 
Johnson — * William Hust, *J. R. Smith. 
Jones — James M. Gray, P. T. Pitts. 
Laurens — Nathan Tucker, J. W. Yopp. 
Xee — W. B. Richardson, Goode Bryan. 
Liberty — W. B. Fleming, S. M. Varuadoe. 
Lowndes — C. H. M. Howell, Isaiah Tilman. 
Lumpkin — *Benjamin Hamilton, *Williani Martin. 
Madison — J. S. Gholston, A. C. Daniel. 
Macon — W. H. Robinson, J. H. Carson. 
Marion — W. M. Brown, J. M. Harvey. 
Mclntoili-i. M. Harris, G." W. M. Williams, 
Meriicellier-B.. R. Harris, W. D. Martin, *Hiram Warner. 
Miller— ^N. J. Cheshier, C. L. Whitehead. 
Milton — *Jackson Graham, *J. C. Street. 
Mitchell— W\\y\an\ T. Cox, Jesse Reed. 

Monroe—^. L. Roddey, *Hiram Phiuizy, Jr., J. T. Stephens. 
Montgomery— *T. M. McRhae, *S. H. Latimer. 
Morgan — Thomas P. Saffold, Augustus Reese. 
Murray — *Anderson Farnsworth, *Euclid Waterhouse. 
Muscogee — J. N. Ramsey, Henry L. Benning, A. S. Rutherford. 
j^ewton — W. S. Montgomery, Alexander Means, *Purmedus Reynolds. 
Oglethorpe — D. D. Johnson, Samuel Glenn, *Willis Willinghara. 
Paulding — Henry Lester, J. Y. Algood. 
Pickens — *James Simmons, *W. T. Day. 
Pierce — E. D. Hendry, J. W. Stevens. 
Plke—R. B. Gardener, G. M. McDowell. 
Polk—W. E. West, *T. W. Dupree. 
Pulaski— T. J. McGrifE, C. M. Bozeman. 
Putnam— *R. T. Davis, D. R. Adams. 
Quitman— E. C. Ellington, L. P. Dozier. 
■ Rabun— *Sa,mue\ Beck, *H. W. Cannon. 
Randolph — Marcellus Douglas, Arthur Hood. / 
Richmond— George W. Crawford, J. Phinizy, Sr., J. P. Garvin, 
Schley— U. L. French, W. A. Black. 
Scriven — C. Humphries, J. L. Singleton. 
Spaulding—^Y . G. Dewberry, Henry Moor. 
Stewart — James A. Fort, James Hilliard, G. Y. Banks. 
Sumter — W. A. Hawkins, T. M. Furiow, Henry Davenport. 
Talbot— *W. R. Neal, W. B. Marshall, L. B. Smith. 



OEGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. I77 

Taliaferro— * Alexander H. Stephens, *S. H. Perkins. 

Tatnall — *Benjamin Brewton, *Henry Strickland. 

Taylor— *W. J. F. Mitchell, H. H. Long. 

Telfair—*}!. McLean, *James Williamson. 

TerreZ/— *William Harrington, *D. A. Cochran. ' 

Thomas— A. H. Hansell, S. B. Spencer, W. G. Ponder. 

Towns — *John Corn, *Elijah Kimsey. 

Troup— B. H. Hill, W. P. Beasley, J. E. Beall. 

Twiggs — John Fitzpatrick, S. L. Richardson. 

Union— *J. H. Huggins, *J. P. Welborn. 

Upson — *P. W. Alexander, *T. S. Sherman. 

Walker— *G. G. Gordon, *R. B. Dickerson, *T. A. Sharps. 

Walton — George Spence, *Willis Kilgore, H. D. McDaniel. 

Ware—W. A. McDonald, C. W. Stiles. 

Warren— M. D. Cody, N. A. Wicker. 

Way7ie — Henry Fort, H. A. Cannon. 

Washington — E. S. Langmade, Lewis Ballard, A. C. Harris. 

Websler—P. F. Brown, M. H. Bush. 

White — Isaac Bowen, *E. F. Starr. 

Whitfield — *J. M. Jackson, F. A. Thomas, *Dickerson Taliaferro. 

Wilcox — D. A. McLeod, Smith Turner. 

Wilkes — Robert Toombs, J. J. Robertson. 

Wilkinson — *jSr. A. Carswell, *R. J. Cochran. 

Worth— K. G. Ford, Sr., T. T. Mounger. 

Before the introduction of the ordinance a test vote 
was had upon a simple resolution offered by Judge Nes- 
bit, in these words : — 

Resolved. That in the opinion of this Convention, it is the right and duty 
of Georgia to secede from the present Union, and to co-operate with such of 
the other States as have or shall do the same, for the purpose of forming a 
Southern Confederacy upon the basis of the Constitution of the United 
States. 

The vote on this was the test of the question of imme- 
diate secession and stood 166 to 130. Forty-one mem- 
bers, after the main question had been thus decided, left 
the eighty-nine, voting with the majority. They were 
Messrs. Adams, Beasley, Black, Bowen, Briscoe, Brown 
of Marion, Brown of Webster, Bullard, Bush, Casey, 

Cody, Collins, Crawford of Green, French, Haines, Harris 
12 



178 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES. 

of Hancock, Henderson, Hill of Harris, Hill of Troup, 
Hudson of Harris, Johnson of Clayton, Ketchum, Lamar 
of Lincoln, Langmade, Low, LoMg, McDaniel, Means, 
Mershon, Neal of Columbia, Saffold, Sisk, Smith of Tal- 
bot, Spence, Stephens of Monroe, Teasley, Thomas of 
"Whitfield, Tucker of Hancock, Wicker, Williams of Har- 
ris, and Yopp. 

Occupation of Fort Pulaski. 

The two channels of Savannah river at its mouth are 
commanded by Fort Pulaski, on Cockspur, a low, marshy 
island a half mile wide, situated at the head of Tybee 
roads. It is a five sides work, of seven and a half feet 
walls twenty-five feet above water, surrounded by a 
forty-eight feet wet ditch. The fort is capable of mount- 
ing one hundred and forty guns. It had only twenty 
thirty-two pound guns, with limited supply of ammunition 
and stores, and without a military force, being in charge 
of an ordnance sergeant and his assistants. 

It was manifest that the policy of the United States 
was coercion by armed forces in case the secession move- 
ment should be carried into effect, and the States seced- 
ing disregard the authority of the general government, 
and that the arms and fortifications of the government 
w^ould be placed in condition to be promptly used for that 
purpose. The occupation of this fort, by the State, was 
reo-arded by Governor Brown, and all the leading men of 
the State, as of the first importance in the event of an at- 
tempt to invade and subjugate it. It was also regarded 
as scarcely less important that it should be done promptly, 
while there were no forces there to resist, and the taking 
of it would be unattended with violence and bloodshed, 
and consequent popular exasperation North and South. 



OKGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDEEACY. 179 

While secession was the fixed purpose, it was only first 
in magnitude and importance to the preservation of 
peace between the sections, if indeed such were possible 
and practical, and, whatever doubt any may have then 
entertained, the prudence and wisdom of this, by some 
called rashness and folly, were soon after fully verified 
by transpiring events. 

Governor Brown, who had established headquarters 
at the city of Savannah in order to act promptly in any 
emergency as commander-in-chief, on the second day of 
January, 1861, issued to Colonel Alexander R. Lawton 
commanding 1st regiment Georgia volunteers, an order 
reciting, among other things : — 

" In view of the fact that the government at Washington has, as we are 
informed upon high authority, decided on the policy of coercing a seceding 
State back into the Union, and it is believed now has a movement on foot to 
reinforce Fort Sumter at Charleston, and to occupy with Federal troops the 
Southern forts, including Fort Pulaski in this State, which if done will give 
the Federal government in any contest great advantages over the people 
in this State, to the end therefore that this stronghold,, which commands 
also the entrance into Georgia, may not be occupied by any hostile force 
until the convention of the State of Georgia, which is to meet on the 
16th instant, has decided on the policy which Georgia will adopt in this emer- 
gency, you are ordered to take possession of Fort Pulaski, as by public order 
herewith, and to hold it against all persons, to be abandoned only under or- 
ders from me, or under compulsion by an overpowering hostile force." 

On the morning of the third of January, Colonel Law- 
ton, in obedience to the Governor's order, embarked on 
board a steamer at Savannah, in command of detachments 
from the Chatham artillery. Captain Cleghorn ; the Sa- 
vannah volunteer guards, Captain Screven ; and Ogle- 
thorpe light infantry, Captain Bartow ; numbering one 
hundred and twenty-five men and officers ; and at noon 
of that day took formal possession of the fort in the name 
of the State of Georgia, and without encountering any re- 



180 SECESSION OF COTTON-GEOWING STATES. 

sistance. Her flag was raised and saluted above the bat- 
tlements of the fort, where it continued to float over her 
troops until they were transferred to the Confederacy, 
with the command of the fort; and was lowered to give- 
place to that of the newly formed government. 

This independent and prompt action by the Executive 
was sanctioned by the secession convention on the 18th 
of the same month, by the following resolution : — 

" That this convention highly approves the energetic and patriotic conduct 
of Governor Brovpn in taking possession of Fort Pulaski by Georgia troops, 
and requests him to hold possession until the relations of Georgia with the 
Federal government be determined by this convention." 

Two State Eegiments Anterior to the Confederacy. 

The convention after adopting the secession ordinance 
with the view to provide for the defence of the State by 
ordinance authorized the Governor to raise and equip a 
military force not to exceed two regiments of infantry, or 
infantry and artillery in such proportion as he should di- 
rect. He proceeded to raise and equip one regiment of 
regulars, under the command of Colonel Charles J. Wil- 
liams, and a regiment of volunteers under the command 
of Colonel Paul J. Semmes. He had continued, after tak- 
ing possession, to hold the fort and garrison the river 
approaches to Savannah, and to project and carry forward 
such improvements as he was able to do by the aid of 
slave-laborers tendered by planters, and by the troops 
under his command, mainly the volunteer companies of 
Savannah, up to the time, in April following, when the 
first regiment of regulars was distributed at Savannah, 
Fort Jackson, on the river. Fort Pulaski, and on Tybee 
Island. These regiments by ordinance of the Convention 
had been transferred to the Confederate Governor, and 



ORGANIZATION OE THE CONFEDEEACY. 181 

early in the summer of 1861 were sent to the Virginia 
front. 

Transfer to Confederacy. 

By ordinances of the convention of March 20, all the 
military operations in the State having reference to or 
questions between this State or any of the Confederate 
States of America and powers foreign to them, and the 
arms and munitions of war acquired from the United 
States with the forts and arsenals, and which were then 
in the said forts and arsenals, were transferred to the Con- 
federate States; and that government was authorized to 
occupy, use, and hold possession of all the forts, navy 
yards, arsenals, custom houses, and other public sites and 
their appurtenances within the limits of this State, and 
lately in possession of the United States of America ; and 
to repair, rebuild, and control the same at its discretion, 
until said ordinance be repealed by a convention of the 
people of Georgia. 

Exercise of Separate State Sovereignty. 

After the passage of the ordinance of secession by the 
several conventions composed of delegates representing 
the people of the seceding States respectively, the Execu- 
tives thereof prior to the formation of a new union rep- 
resented by common government acted upon the theory 
that each for the time intervening was a separate and 
distinct sovereign power, having withdrawn all delegated 
powers and rehabilitated themselves with all the attributes 
of sovereignty as if each had been a free and independent 
nation. This was in full accord with the doctrine and 
theory of State rights as understood by the great and 
gifted leaders of Southern opinion, and consequently the 
Governors of seceded States were well upheld and sus- 



182 SECESSION OF COTTON-GEOWING STATES. 

tained by the judgment and sympathy of statesmen and by 
the great volume of public virtue and intelligence. 

In Georgia this was strikingly illustrated in several ex- 
citing instances. The government had at the arsenal at 
Augusta a company of United kStates troops under the 
command of Capt. Arnold Elzey, with the government 
flag waving over them on Georgia soil, a battery of can- 
non, twenty thousand stand of muskets, and large quanti- 
ties of ammunition. 

Governor Brown determined that this state of affairs 
was inconsistent with the sovereignty and independence 
of the State, and decided upon the seizure of the arsenal, 
arms, and military stores and holding them under the au- 
thority of Georgia. Hon. Henry R. Jackson who had been 
judge of the Savannah district in early life, commanded the 
regiment of Georgia volunteers in the Mexican war at a still 
earlier period, and was later a minister to the court of Aus- 
tria under President Buchanan, and a life-long prominent 
Democratic leader in the State, enthused by the novel 
and threatening aspect of public affairs, became a mem- 
ber of the Governor's staff as aid-de-camp, as did Gen- 
eral William Phillips. Attended by these and a small 
force the Governor in person demanded to occupy the ar- 
senal, arms, and stores. Captain Elzey, a brave officer but 
not hostile in feeling to the South, at first refused under 
a sense of duty to the government ; but at last and with- 
out violent collision yielded to the necessity which would 
have forced the surrender, in the conduct of which he 
was treated with all courtesy and consideration due to 
himself, his men, and the United States government. 

About the time of the secession of this State there 
were shipments of arms being made from New York 
which attracted the attention of the authorities there. 



OEGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 183 

Some of the arms were claimed and proven to be private 
property shipped for sale by merchants. But all the cir- 
cumstances indicate that the authorities of this State 
were preparing for the emergency which in fact soon after 
arose. These arms were seized at New York under the 
authority of the police of the city, held adversely and 
against the authority and people of Georgia. 

It was an occasion for and which summoned the prompt 
action of her Governor and commander-in-chief. He 
made his demand direct upon Governor Morgan of the 
State of New York for the release of the arms. The man- 
ner of the United States government had been most 
contemptuous toward the seceding States, and Gov- 
ernor Morgan at first so treated the Governor's demand 
for the arms ; paying no attention and making no reply. 
In the course of a few days of this contemptuous silence, 
Governor Brown determined to enforce his demand by re- 
prisal upon the property of citizens of New York in this 
State. There were several vessels at the port of Savan- 
nah, which, by order of the Governor, Colonel Henry B. 
Jackson promptly seized and held, under the military au- 
thority and in the custody of the State, until the restitu- 
tion of the arms demanded by Governor Brown should 
be made by the Governor of New York, and which were 
forcibly held by the police of New York city. This led 
to a correspondence between the two Governors, which, 
after much cavil and some delay, resulted in conceding 
the demand on the part of Governor Morgan, the release 
and sending forward of the captured arms; and the final 
release of the New York vessels held under the Governor's 
order by Colonel Jackson in the river at Savannah. 

The State convention, as a provisional measure of pub- 
lic safety, as elsewhere stated, authorized the Governor 



184 SECESSION OF COTTOX-GROWING STATES. 

to raise and equip two regiments, to act under his author- 
ity as commander-in-chief. The first, known through 
the war as the first regiment of Georgia regulars, was 
recruited and formed by individual enlistments, they be- 
ing formed into companies and officered by his appoint- 
ment. He was also authorized to purchase steamboats 
for the defence of the river approaches. These were 
placed under the command of Commodore Tatnall, a na- 
tive of Georgia, who, having resigned his place in the 
United States navy, accepted service under Georgia by 
the appointment of her Governor. 

These land and naval forces, weak and crude as they 
were compared with those of the United States govern- 
ment then being put in order and marshalled to subjugate 
the South, were all under the command of Henry R. Jack- 
son, whom the Governor had appointed brigadier-general, 
.who held the command until the organization of the Con- 
federacy, and the transfer of the forces to the Confederate 
States of America. 

Assembling of the Provisional Congress. 

The convention of the State of Alabama, having adopted 
a similar ordinance to those of South Carolina, Georgia, 
Mississippi, and Florida, invited the States by delegates, to 
a convention to be holden at the city of Montgomery on 
the 4th day of February, proximo, to which invitation 
they responded by the several conventions as they se- 
ceded. 

In this State, they were elected by the convention in 
numbers corresponding with oul- members of Congress; 
two from the State at large, and one for each representa- 
tive. 

The result of which was that Robert Toombs, of the 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 185 

county of Wilkes, and Howell Cobb, of the county of 
Clarke, were duly elected for the State at large, and the 
following named persons for the several districts affixed 
to their names, to wit : 

Francis S. Bartow, for the 1st Congressional District. 

Martin J. Crawford, " 2d " " 

EuGENius A. Nesbit, '•' 3d " " 

Benjamin H. Hill, " 4th " " 

Augustus R. Wright, " 5th " " 

Thomas E,. R. Cobb, " 6th " . " 

Augustus H Kenan, " 7th " " 

Alexander H. Stephens," 8th " " 

In the mean time, the authorities of the seceding States 
took control of and held the United States arsenals, navy 
yards, forts, and all places and property of the govern- 
ment, within their respective limits, in opposition to the 
authorities of the United States ; Forts Sumter, .in South 
Carolina, and Pickens, in Florida, having been timely gar- 
risoned by United States troops, were still held by the 
Federal government against these States, and continued 
to be held in opposition to the new government when or- 
ganized. 

The State of South Carolina sent to Georgia, as a spe- 
cial commissioner, the Honorable James L. Orr, commis- 
sioned by his Excellency, Governor F. W. Pickens, who 
communicated to the Georgia convention on its first meet- 
ing, the 16th of January, the official action of South Car- 
olina — her ordinance of secession adopted on the 20th 
of December, preceding. 

Ex-Governor John Gill Shorter, commissioned by Gov- 
ernor A. B. Moore, represented Alabama, and communi- 
cated the action of that State and her secession ordinance 



186 SECESSION OE COTTON-GROWING STATES. 

adopted in convention on the 11th of January, six days 
prior to the assembling of our convention ; and also the 
invitation of that State to meet in convention at Mont- 
gomery, on the 4th of February. 

The Honorable Thomas W. White, commissioned by 
Governor John Q. Pettus of Mississippi, represented that 
State, communicating to our convention the proceedings 
of that State, which had seceded on the 9th of January. 

The State of Georgia, after following the States which 
had seceded, appointed Honorable D C. Campbell a spe- 
cial commissioner to the State of Delaware, with a view 
to induce that State to join her slaveholding sisters. 

In like manner, and for the same purpose. General John 
W. A. Sanford was commissioned to Texas ; Honorable 
A. K. Wright, to Maryland ; Honorable Samuel Hall was 
commissioned to his native State, North Carolina ; Hon- 
orable Hiram P. Bell, to the State of Tennessee; Dr. W. 
C. Daniel, to the State of Kentucky ; and Honorable W. 
J. Vason, to the State of Louisiana. 

The State of South Carolina, after her secession, had 
made the fruitless attempt to settle by peaceful negotia- 
tions all matters of probable conflict and dispute to grow 
out of her separation and withdrawal from the Union, by 
sending commissioners to Washington charged with au- 
thority to do so. This mission, notwithstanding the high 
character of the gentlemen accredited, and the respect- 
ful manner in which they demeaned themselves toward 
the authorities of the government, failed to accomplish 
any of its objects; but tended to confirm the already 
well-grounded apprehension of the hostile aims of the 
United States toward the States preparing to withdraw. 

As we have seen, no organized convention or co-opera- 
tion of States existed prior to the separate action of each. 



OKGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 187 

They recognized the legal power of the United States over 
the citizens so long as the States remained in the Union. 
But it was not by any State or any portion of the people 
anticipated that the sovereignty resumed by the seceding 
States would be continued to be separately exercised by 
any. 

All eyes turned with solicitude therefore to the conven- 
tion invited by Alabama at Montgomery. 

That body was promptly organized by making Ex- 
Governor Howell Cobb, of Georgia, president. This gen- 
tlemen had been Secretary of the Treasury under Presi- 
dent Buchanan after serving his State as Governor, and 
in the House of Representatives in Congress. He was a 
popular Democratic leader from his youth, was a Union 
man in 1850 ; but became an ardent secessionist upon 
the election of Mr. Lincoln, and exerted the utmost of his 
powers and large influence over the public mind to bring 
about the separation. He had himself been often and 
highly spoken of for President of the United States. His 
ability, firmness and moderation, as well as his distinc- 
tion and popularity, eminently fitted him for the deli- 
cate and responsible position. 

Election of President and Vice-President. 

The deliberations of this body were conducted in secret, 
and whatever differences in judgment and plans may 
have sprung up, they did not embarrass the people, who 
regarded it as a harmonious and eminently patriotic assem- 
bly; and were prepared in mind and heart to accept and 
promptly co-operate in its action. 

The convention having assumed the title of Confeder- 
ate States of America, proceeded to elect Hon. Jefferson 
Davis of the State of Mississippi provisional President, 



188 SECESSION OF COTTON-GEOWING STATES. 

and Hon. Alexander H. Stephens provisional Vice-Presi- 
dent of the Confederate States. 

These appointments were received and cordially ap- 
proved by all classes of people. There were other able 
and competent leaders who would no doubt have ac- 
cepted the position of president, and whose respective 
friends and admirers would have been more gratified for 
the time being to see honored than Mr. Davis ; but to 
him no objection was publicly urged, if any existed. 

His private life and character had ever been without 
reproach. He had given proof of his gallantry and ability 
in the field during the war between his country and the 
republic of Mexico. He had been long a member of 
Congress from Mississippi, discharged with ability and to 
the great satisfaction of the United States the duties of 
secretary of war during the administration of President 
Pierce ; and had been an eminent leader of the Southern 
people upon the subject of State rights, and Southern 
rights, and the issues that had now divided the Union. 

He united in himself in the opinion of his people in a 
rare degree the qualities of unsullied honor, devotion to 
the South, moral and physical courage, ability as a states- 
man and no ordinary military talents, with a firmness 
and integrity of purpose and strength of will seldom to 
be found, as well as energy and perseverance equal to 
the crisis. The opinions of many were much modified 
and changed as to some of the points above mentioned 
during the four years of severe trial that ensued ; but 
in nothing that related to his honor, courage, firmness, 
pa'triotism, or devotion to the South and her people. 
But at the time of the publication of his appointment the 
effect was the very best upon the people generally, who 
believed that, all things considered, he was the best man 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 189 

in the confederacy then formed for its presidency. Those 
who had favored the claims of other men soon settled 
down in the patriotic and satisfactory conviction that the 
convention had acted wisely in selecting him. 

The appointment of Mr. Stephens vice-president, and 
his acceptance of the second place were equally gratifying 
to all the friends of the revolution. His clear head and 
honest heart, his great experience in public life, forecast, 
and practical wisdom, and unsullied private life and char- 
acter had given him large influence over statesmen North 
and South, and upon the people of the South. He had 
been long the object of pride in his State, and of a warmth 
of admiration rarely felt for any public political leader. 
Up to the secession of Georgia he had been bitterly and 
firmly opposed to the movement, was a delegate from 
his county in the secession convention, where he spoke 
and voted against it, but, impelled by his loyalty to his 
State and his theory of State rights and sovereignty, so 
soon as she acted he ceased his opposition and joined the 
movement. His appointment by the Congress was com- 
mended, not only commended upon the ground that the 
public men and people esteemed him eminently fitted, but 
also upon the ground that it afibrded additional proof of 
the good fiiith of the secession party and promoted the 
best of feelings and cordial relations between them and 
those who had opposed secession. All the people had 
reason to realize that the conflicts between them were 
ended, and the antagonisms engendered by them buried 
with the past, and were replaced by fraternity, and united 
and harmonious and earnest counsels looking to the suc- 
cess of the cause and the good of the people: 

The convention proceeded with great dispatch to frame 
a provisional constitution, and to organize the depart- 



190 SECESSION OF COTTON-GEOWING STATES. 

ments of government. On the 11th day of March the 
provisional Congress, composed of the delegates, assembled 
as a convention, adopted a permanent Constitution,* and 
proposed the same for ratification to the several State 
conventions represented in that Congress, which was by 
each promptly ratified and thus became the organic law 
of the Confederate States of America. 

Constitutional Changes. 

The new government is founded upon the model of 
the old, being identical in the leading characteristics — the 
executive, legislative and judicial branches. 

The general enumeration of delegated and reserved 
powers, in the main, are copied from the old constitution 
with only a few modifications and express restrictions. 

The preamble contains the significant clause not in the 
old constitution : " each State acting in its sovereign and 
independent character; " and also the clause : " invoking 
the favor and guidance of Almighty God." The Confed- 
erate Constitution provides that no person of foreign birth, 
not a citizen of the Confederate States, shall vote for any 
officer. State, or Federal ; and provides that army officers 
of the general government, residing and acting solely 
within any State, may be impeached by the Legislature 
thereof. That no bounties shall be granted from the pub- 
lic treasury, nor duties laid upon importations from for- 
eign countries to foster any branch of industry; and that 
duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout 



* The provisional Constitution being only temporary, and the permanent Constitution 
having been overthrown by the armed power of the United States, the copies of those in- 
struments inserted in this chapter written in 1861 are here omitted, retaining the notes 
of diif erence between the Constitution of the United States and that of the Confederate 
States. 



ORGANIZATIOX OF THE CONFEDERACY. 191 

the Confederate States ; denies to Congress the power to 
appropriate money for any internal improvement intended 
to facilitate commerce, except for furnishing lights, bea- 
cons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the 
coast ; and the improvement of harbors, and the removal 
of obstructions in river navigation ; in all which cases, it 
is provided that the duties shall be laid on the navigation 
facilitated thereby. 

It requires that after a given day the post-office depart- 
ment shall be self-sustaining, and prohibits the passage of 
any bankrupt law to discharge any debts contracted be- 
fore the passage thereof; or any law impairing the right 
of property in negro slaves. 

It requires that all bills appropriating money shall spec- 
ify in Federal currency the amount of each appropriation, 
and the purposes for which it is made ; and prohibits Con- 
gress from granting extra compensation to any public con- 
tractor or agent after the contract is made or the service 
rendered. It specifies the powers and duties of Congress 
in reference to the territories of the Confederate States ; 
and particularly recognizes and establishes the institution 
of slavery therein. It changes the presidential term from 
four to six years, making the President ineligible for a sec- 
ond term, and gives Congress the power to grant to the 
heads of executive departments the privilege to sit in 
either House of Congress, and discuss questions appertain- 
ing to their respective departments. It provides that 
Congress, upon the demand of any three States concur- 
ring in the proposal of any amendment, shall summon a 
convention of all the States, to take into consideration the 
amendments to the constitution thus proposed. 

It restricts the limitation in the old constitution that 
" no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from 



192 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES. 

any State," and provides, that it may be done by a vote 
of two-thirds of both houses. 

It prohibits the importation of negroes of the African 
race except from the slaveholding States or territories of 
the United States, and gives Congress power to prohibit it 
from any State or territory not of the Confederate States. 

It omits the prohibitory clause, " nor shall vessels 
bound to or from one State be obliged to enter, clear, or 
pay duties in another." Omits the prohibition to the 
States to " emit bills of credit." It restricts the prohibi- 
tion to the States without the consent of Congress to lay 
any duty on tonnage, so as to except ''sea-going vessels, for 
the improvement of its rivers and harbors, navigated by 
aid vessels," but provides that such duties shall not con- 
flict with any treaties of the Confederate States with for- 
eign nations ; and requires that any surplus revenue thus 
derived, after making such improvements, be paid into 
the common treasury. It provides also that where any 
river divides or flows through two or more States they 
may enter into compact with each other to improve the 
navigation thereof 

It requires a vote of two-thirds of Congress to appro- 
priate money, and the yeas and nays recorded, unless the 
appropriation is asked by the head of a department and 
submitted to Congress by the President ; or for the pur- 
pose of paying its own expenses and contingencies ; or 
for the payment of claims against the Confederate States, 
the justice of which shall have been judicially declared by 
a tribunal for the investigation of claims against the 
government, which tribunal it is made the duty of Con- 
gress to establish.* 



*Sucli are the leading features which distinguish the Confederate States' Constitution 
from that of the United States, at the time of the adoption of tlie former. The author's 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 193 

But the author's main objection to this, as to the old 
constitution, was that it did not provide absolutely for the 
enforcement of the doctrine of perfectly equal rights, im- 
munities, exactions, and burdens to all States, sections, 
classes of people, and of occupations and callings, so far 
as they are affected by the common government ; and 
that odious and oppressive discriminations may be made 
by statute law without a violation of the constitution. 
The conclusion of the elaborate chapter was in these 
words : — 

" When we shall have waded through years as we already have through 
months of sore conflict, privation, slaughter, and waste — if a favoring Provi- 
dence shall see fit to so afflict us — when we shall have gained our independ- 
ence of the United States, with whose powerful and increasing armies our 
gallant kindred now contend, then we shall have gained an extension merely 
of the old charter of liberty. We shall then have, as a boon to ourselves and 
to bequeath to our children, the right to cavil and debate as to what is 
meant by the grants and restrictions in the Confederate constitution, 
until the deep wells of passion are stirred up, sectional or internal jealousies 
form into factions and parties based upon opposing interests. Then the 
descendants of the heroes of Bethel, Manassas, and Oak Hill will be called 
on to again solve in blood the still unsettled problem of human rights and 
wrongs." 



voluminous criticism upon the then appai'ent want of completeness in constitutional re- 
form, aud the insufficiency of this organic law to prevent another revolution in case of the 
success of this, are here omitted, as the work of organic change in favor of the rights of 
the State and people has been effectually arrested by arms. He then thought, and at- 
tempted to show, that the powers and prerogatives of the Executive, and of Congress, as 
well as the reserved rights and powers, the duties aud obligations of the States, should have 
been clearly, specifically and unmistakably defined, and the remedy, if any was intended, 
indicated for wrongs and insupportable violations of the common compact. They were 
forming another confederacy of co-equal and sovereign States. The mooted questions of 
the old Union related mainly to these subjects, and led to separation and war between the 
States. It seems remarkable that there was a total omission to provide any remedy for ag- 
gressions, assumptions, and intolerable grievances ; not even the question of secession is 
referred to in the new organic law, upon the right or wrong of which, as a remedy, depended 
the right or wrong of the collision that was to ensue, in a constitutional view. 
13 



194 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWINO STATES. 

Confederate Constitution. — How Adopted. 

The Confederate constitution never came before the 
people for ratification. The delegates to the State con- 
ventions were elected by the people to decide upon the 
issue whether the States calling* them would submit to 
the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United 
States and the placing in power a sectional party and ad- 
ministration hostile to the institution of slavery and upon 
the mode and measure of redress. After passing seces- 
sion ordinances and separating the respective States from 
the Union, as understood by us, they proceeded to ap- 
point delegates to a convention of seceded States upon 
the invitation of Alabama. In many instances persons of 
their own body were appointed. In Georgia all the dele- 
gates to Congress, except Howell Cobb, Martin J. Craw- 
ford, and Augustus R. Wright, were delegates from their 
reepective counties in the State convention. 

The convention of States or provisional Congress framed 
the Confederate Constitution ; referred it back to the same 
State Conventions by which alone it was ratified. The 
people did not appoint the members of the provisional 
Congress, and never by their vote upon it ratified the 
Constitution enacted by it. 

But while there was no formal specific ratification ex- 
cept by the Secession convention, the hearts of the peo- 
ple generally were in full sympathy and accord with the 
movement, and approved the apparent haste under the 
pressing emergencies with which it was effected. . The 
convention desired no popular discussion on the form and 
details of a constitution in the face of a vital struggle for 
national life itself. And the people generally having 
full confidence in the wisdom and patriotism of the pro- 
visional Congress did not desire to have it discussed. It 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 195 

had met on the 4th of February and made and organized 
a provisional government; and by the 11th day of March 
framed and submitted to the State conventions for ratifi- 
cation the form of a permanent Constitution. 

The Congress proceeded to organize a post office de- 
partment, war department, the attorney-general's or de- 
partment of justice, treasury department, and department 
of state, and to adopt such enactments as the situation of 
affairs seemed to require in order to carry on the machin- 
ery of the new government, and for the public defence in 
case war should result from the separation. 

Efforts to Negotiate. 

It was the settled purpose of the new government, and 
a large and overwhelming majority of the people, now 
that the States had withdrawn and formed a new union, 
to maintain it even at the hazard of war between the se- 
ceded States and the United States. But it was intensely 
desired by many of the people that it should be evaded, and 
the separation result in the establishment of peace and 
amity between the two governments. To this end a com- 
mission was sent to Washington with powers and instruc- 
tions to adjust and settle all conflicting claims and com- 
plicated affairs between the United States and the Confed- 
erate States in a manner satisfactory to both, provided the 
former would negotiate upon the basis of the independ- 
ence of the latter. This commission necessarily failed, 
as that government was fully determined to treat the 
seceding people as rebel subjects, and in no sense whatever 
to recognize any legal status- or any claim or demand of 
the seceding States as a separate and independent govern- 
ment. Alleged perfidy and duplicity and contemptuous 
treatment by the officials at Washington toward the com- 



196 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES. 

missioners afforded grounds for severe criticism and 
tended further to add to the provocations, and inflame the 
passions of the Southern people. 

Efforts for Recognition. 

The Confederate States also sent a commission to Eu- 
rope headed by William L. Yancey of Alabama, with a view 
to procure the recognition by England and France of the 
independence of the Confederate States. 

It had been often urged by speakers and writers to the 
people of the South, when favoring secession, and in con- 
troverting the probability that war would result, that the 
United States were too deeply interested in our products 
to go to war with us ; and that England and France be- 
ing manufacturing countries, and largely interested in the 
growth of raw fabrics in the Southern States, would be by 
sympathy based on interest and jealousy toward the 
United States, the only remaining part of this country 
that offered them competition, would become our friends 
and allies, and upon the formation of a Southern govern- 
ment would promptly recognize us ; and thus tend to 
prevent war. Our people, as well as our government 
were sadly disappointed, when by the entire failure of 
those governments to move on that line, they suddenly 
realized their fixed purpose of neutrality in form, but 
quasi hostility in fact and effect; and that from these pow- 
erful and controlling European nations all the recognition 
we could get, until our independence should be achieved, 
was that of " belligerents ;" for whatever of sympathy 
may have been felt by English and French people toward 
the Confederate States, it became more and more appar- 
ent that we had no well grounded hope of any from those 
governments. 



OEGAKIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 197 

Efforts at Compeomise. — President Buchanan. — Ac- 
tion OF THE Border States. 

The work of separation and reorganization having been 
completed to the satisfaction of the friends of the revolu- 
tion, there seemed to be but one check to the general joy 
and happiness of the people ; one fearful barrier to the 
immediate national prosperity. Our house was easily set 
in order; our affairs among ourselves were adjusted with- 
out an apparent element of strife or discord; for, as to all 
the elements, moral, religious, social and material, all that 
exert any control in politics and government, we were 
then a united, earnest, and enthusiastic people. The 
great check was in the terrible truth, that our relations 
with the government of the United States with which 
the Southern States had been so long bound by fraternal, 
social, material, and constitutional ties were not settled. 
The great problem was still to be solved — whether our de- 
mand to depart in peace, live separate, and be an inde- 
pendent nation, was to be allowed without force by that 
government. The public awaited the determination of 
the issue with deep anxiety, and with mixed emotions of 
hope, dread, and fear. Maryland," Delaware, Virginia, 
North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Mis- 
souri, all slaveholding Southern States, had not seceded. 
Strong hopes seemed to be entertained by the leading 
statesmen of most of those States that terms of adjust- 
ment and reconstruction might still be agreed on ; and 
that by wise and prudent councils the final dismember- 
ment of the Union might be prevented. 

These hopes, however, were not based on any overtures, 
propositions, or manifestation of amiable temper or peace- 
ful designs by th^ Republican party, in or out of Congress, 



198 SECESSION OF COTTON-GROWING STATES. 

or from the executive department of the government. 
Their leaders seemed defiant ; their political press con- 
temptuous in tone ; while the members in Congress 
promptly voted down every proposal that sprang from 
Southern men seeking to conciliate and reunite the sec- 
tions. 

The seats of the members from the seceding States had 
all been vacated upon the passage of the ordinance of se-- 
cession by the respective States. The members from the 
border slave States not seceded, were left to contend 
against the overwhelming numbers of the Republicans and 
War Democrats in Congress. 

A peace-Congress composed of delegates from those 
border States was held, and presided over by the. vener- 
able Ex-President John Tyler of Virginia, to which many 
looked with anxious hope, but was unavailing. Hon. 
John C. Breckenridge, senator from Kentucky, the hon- 
ored leader of the southern wing of the old Union Democ- 
racy, remained in his seat, and brought to bear his 
powerful logic and eloquence to no purpose but to satisfy 
himself and the country that there was but one alterna- 
tive left the South — submission to the new administra- 
tion, and the rule of the sectional Republican party, and 
the influence and logical sequences of its teachings and 
doctrines on the institution of slavery and the people 
interested in and identified with it, or prompt prepara- 
tions to resist its aggressive and coercive power. Proposi- 
tions for compromise conciliation were submitted by the 
venerable and sage leader of the old southern Whigs, 
Hon. John C. Crittenden of Kentucky. They too were 
spurned by the unyielding Republicans. 

President Buchanan had been defeated in his efforts to 
preserve the constitution of his country and prolong its 



ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 199 

unity and peace. His policy was condemned by the 
omnipotent voice of the people of his own section of the 
Union. His administration, like his long and eventful 
' public life, was drawing to a close. He had lost prestige 
to a large extent, and fallen between the contending 
hosts, not looked to as a leader of the North, not relied 
on as a friend of the South, or dreaded as among her 
strongest foes. He provoked the ire of the Northern peo- 
ple by an alleged inclination to favor, or to be too lenient 
towards the South. He provoked the animadversions of 
Southern people, by what appeared to be a vacillating 
policy and course of conduct. A patriot desiring to 
prevent dissolution and strife, and to see a peaceful ter- 
mination of the pending troubles, but without power to 
control the storm which he would not aggravate by what 
appeared would be a futile attempt at prompt suppression. 
His long and able services to his country and govern- 
ment in Congress, in the cabinet, as minister abroad and 
as President of the United States, begun in the brighter 
and purer days of the republic, characterized by unfalter- 
ing devotion to what he regarded the public good, 
through sunshine and shade, amid the storms of public 
passion, and in the calm and serene days of the peaceful 
past, was now about to terminate with the violent sever- 
ance of the Federal Union he had so long loved and 
cherished. 

Secession and Accession of Boedee States. 

All efforts to reconcile the alienated sections having 
failed, and the people of the border slaveholding States 
having left to them the choice of their own course, to 
remain in the Union and abide the consequences to flow 
to themselves from a government regarded as to a large 



200 SECESSION OF COTTON-GEOWING STATES. 

extent hostile to them, and their institutions, and to be 
compelled as citizens subject to that government to aid 
in subjugating those who had withdrawn, and with whom 
they had common cause of complaint, — or to unite their 
fortunes and destiny with them, — did not long hesitate. 

As South Carolina had led the cotton-growing States, 
and seemed by common consent to bear the palm for the 
unanimity and promptness of her people, Virginia now 
seemed to be looked to with deep interest as likely to 
affect the action and course of the border States. Many 
of the people of the cotton States had favored and voted 
for secession as a remedy under the hope and belief that 
it would be peaceful. But Virginia adopted it, after its 
peaceful features had vanished; and when her people 
knew that grim-visaged war was at her gates as an alter- 
native, threatened and morally certain, to submission ; 
and with a strong probability that her own bosom would 
be the seat of the deadly and wasteful conflict. 

Her ordinance of secession was adopted on the 17th of 
April. Her sublime example was followed by Arkansas 
on the 6 th of May ; by North Carolina on the 20th, and 
by Tennessee on the 8th of June. 

Maryland cast her lot on the side of the Union, not- 
withstanding many of her noblest people were true to 
the South ; and many of her brave sons voluntarily as- 
sumed the labor and danger of defending her cause. 

The Executive of Missouri declared that State seceded 
on the 8th of August. But the people w^ere opposed to 
the movement, and went with the Union. Still a few of 
the noble and brave joined our standard. 

In Kentucky, a provisional southern government was 
organized after it was known that the State authorities 
would not act, and when it was strongly probable that the 



OEGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 201 

majority of her people favored the old Union. Both 
Kentucky and Missouri, however, sent members who 
acted as such in the Confederate Congress, and troops to 
our armies.* 



*If those States, with their vast resources of men and stock, of meat and bread, had gone 
promptly with the other border States, and joined heartily in it, as did Virginia, Tennessee, 
and Arkansas, there can be no ground to doubt that the achievement of Confederate inde- 
pendence would have been ihe result of a short war bel ween the North and South. And 
even if she had had Kentucky without Missouri the cause would not have been lost. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Preparations for War. — Comparatiye Strength and 
Resources. — Opening of Hostilities. — First 
Year's Operations in the Field. — Situation of 
THE People. 

After the secession of the cotton States and the organ- 
ization of the Confederacy, in most of those States the 
military spirit, in anticipation of warlike movements, be- 
gan to be kindled. Volunteer companies in the towns 
and cities began to inure themselves to drill and discipline, 
and new ones to form in every direction. It was not to 
cast lots upon whom the burden should fall of defending 
the South, but the questions were, who can soonest get 
ready, organize, and equip for the post of danger ? Who 
can get arms, and who shall be the favorites of the gov- 
ernment in being allowed the honor of going first to the 
war — of repelling by force the invading foe ? 

The government of the United States had garrisoned 
Fort Sumter, which commanded the approach of the city 
of Charleston ; and Fort Pickens, which commanded the 
approach to the navy yard at Pensacola. The State of 
South Carolina, while indignant at the action of the gov- 
ernment in covering her designs, and in trifling with that 
State, and in garrisoning Fort Sumter contrary to repre- 
sentations held out to her commissioners at Washington; 
and while many of her people desired and urged a differ- 
ent course, very wisely forbore to make any assault upon 
the fort or attempt to regain it by force, but contented 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 203 

herself with preparations to prevent the reinforcement 
of the garrison. Such was the condition of affairs when 
the conduct of them by the State was relinquished to 
Confederate authority. Major Anderson of the United 
States army was in command of the garrison in the fort, 
while its reduction was confided to the command of Brig- 
adier-General G. T. Beauregard of the Confederate States 
provisional army, then composed of such State military 
organizations as had been turned over to the Confederacy, 
and of such volunteer companies as had been tendered to 
and accepted by the Confederacy. The South Carolinians 
guarded the approach of United States vessels which might 
be intended to provision or reinforce the fort while the 
works projected for the reduction of it were being con- 
structed. Major Anderson contented himself to witness 
these hostile demonstrations without attempting to disturb 
them although they were under the range of his guns. 

The artillery fire from one of the Confederate batteries, 
erected to command the approach to the fort, upon a 
United States vessel approaching the fort with supplies 
in violation of the faith of the United States government 
not to attempt to provision or reinforce it but under 
orders from her military authorities, may be denominated 
the first shot of the revolution. This was followed within 
a few days by the opening of General Beauregard's bat- 
teries upon the fort, which resulted in its reduction. All 
efforts that peaceful inclination or honor required having 
been exhausted, the single alternative was left of reducing 
the fort, or suffering it to remain in the hands of the 
United States forces in a threatening posture towards 
Charleston. 

The question as to who begun hostilities depends upon 
the right of secession. If secession was an act of rebellion 



204 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

the attempt to occupy the fort and expel the forces of 
the United States was an attack upon that government 
and clearly an act of war. If secession was the exercise 
of a right to which the States were entitled, then Fort 
Sumter was within the jurisdiction and limits of a govern- 
ment foreign to that of the United States, and the occu- 
pation, garrisoning, and holding it in a threatening post- 
ure, and the attempt to provision and reinforce it 
against the consent of the new government were all acts 
of war on the part of the United States ; and the reduc- 
tion by force, and the occupation of the fort, and the ex- 
pulsion of the troops of the United States on the part of 
the Confederate States, were acts of self-defence. 

The right of secession was a foregone conclusion with us 
and we could not hesitate as to the proper course to pur- 
sue in that emergency. That right was denied by the 
government of the United States. The authorities of that 
government, therefore, held that the firing upon the vessel 
in their service and upon the fort in the occupancy of 
their troops were acts of war. This difference of opinion 
and different line of action in consequence of it brought 
the two nations to the conflict of arms. But there was 
underlying this ostensible issue of forces, and antecedent 
to it. a settled purpose on the part of the United States 
government to resort to coercion. If she had been peace- 
fully inclined, there can be no possible doubt that she 
could without dishonor, and would without hesitation, 
have given the matter a direction which would have met 
the ardent wishes of the South by avoiding the resort to 
arms. Our only mode of avoiding the issue of battle was 
to submit unconditionally, and of this our people and 
government were fully sensible. 

The works projected for the reduction of Fort Sumter 



FIRST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 205 

as well as the bombardment are said to have been con- 
ducted with consummate skill, and the latter was attended 
with scarcely any serious casualties upon either side. 
The great God of battles seemed unwilling, even after the 
peace of a continent was broken in the thunders of battle, 
that the red tide of war should be opened upon such a 
country. 

The success of General Beauregard's operations against 
Sumter raised him to the full measure of public confi- 
dence, and the acts of hostilities had the effect to raise 
the blood of both sections to fever heat. All hope 
of avoiding war was now blighted, and the purpose of 
cultivating peaceful measures, abandoned. The' de- 
mand of the South to be let alone, she had lawfully de- 
termined to enforce if possible, regardless of the cost in re- 
sources, treasure, and blood. Invasion and conquest under 
the guise of suppressing the rebellion and restoring ' the 
Union engrossed the great Northern mind, and stirred 
the passions of that people to the utmost capacity. Their 
public journals were the daily chronicles of busy prep- 
arations for war. The gates of Janus closed amid the pro- 
found peace of the United States for thirteen years were 
now fully open. The storm of popular passion had now 
reached the point of madness, and devoted the people of 
both sections to destruction, and the " red right hand " of 
Omnipotence was upraised to smite them. 

Comparative Population. 

By the census report of the United States for the year 
1860, the total population was 31,646,869; that of the 
non-slaveholding States was 18,950,759 ; that of the non- 
slaveholding territories, 262,701; white and black popula- 
tion of the slaveholding States, 12,433,409. This, however, 



206 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

is not the estimate of peoples as they stand opposed in this 
war. The population of the eleven States of Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and 
Tennessee, which are the States properly embraced in 
the Confederacy, are whites 5,671,723 ; slaves 3,570,987; 
to which add a liberal estimate of the people of Missouri, 
Kentucky, and Maryland, who co-operated with us, say 
one-third of the people of Missouri and Kentucky, and 
one-fifth of those of Maryland, added to the white popula- 
lation South 797,793 whites, and 130,776 slaves, making 
6,468,516 whites, and 3,701,763 slaves and a total popu- 
lation in the South in that war of 10,170,279. Add to 
the northern population the remainder of the people of 
Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland not included on the 
southern side by our estimate, 1,967,766, makes the grand 
total for the North 21,181,226. 

In addition to the fact that more than one-third of the 
10,170,279 on the side of the South were slaves, liable to be 
.abducted or corrupted and rendered useless, and an element 
of weakness upon the near approach of the enemy, the fore- 
going is a more than liberal estimate in favor of the South 
when it is remembered that Western Virginia and a ma- 
jority of the people of East Tennessee were opposed to us, 
and co-operated with the other side whenever opportunity 
oflrered,and there were numerous persons along the border 
in other States thus disaffected. When it is considered that 
President Davis adopted the policy of defensive war and 
declined generally to invade the enemy, it is apparent at 
once that the efficient number for the South was decreased 
at every advance of the enemy. For those who were thus 
cut off from us and left within the line of the enemy's occu- 
pation were powerless to aid us, even if they did not be- 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 207 

come disaffected by the presence of the enemy among 
them, and their resources in provisions were not only thus 
cut off from us but were converted to the use of the 
Federal army. 

It is not practicable to present a precise estimate of the 
strength of the two sections in people. The North in- 
creased rapidly by immigrants, and when we consider the 
extent of the Union sections of the South, and the fact 
that so large an element were slaves and unavailable for 
bearing arms, it was thought fair to estimate three for 
one in favor of the United States against the Confederate 
States. 

The superficial area of the Confederate States was 
741,990 square miles ; that of the United States, includ- 
ing the four slave States of Delaware, Maryland, Ken- 
tucky and Missouri, was 1,045,820 square miles; and that 
of the territories of the United States, 1,580,000 square 
miles. 

Division of Territory. 

The dividing line between the two confederacies, if 
fixed on the northern boundary of the eleven States 
mentioned, was upwards of two thousand miles in length. 
By far the greater portion is a dry line ; and upon the 
balance the Red, the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Poto- 
mac rivers mark the boundary. There were no moun- 
tains forming a line of boundary, except a part of that 
between Virginia and Kentucky. The line of sea-coast to 
be defended was still greater in length than the bound- 
ary line by land, reaching from the mouth of the Rio 
Grande to that of the Potomac, from which any one of 
the eleven States could be directly invaded except Ar- 
kansas and Tennessee. The States of Virginia, North 
Carolina, Texas and Tennessee furnished a large surplus 



208 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

of beef and bacon, corn and wheat, while a considerable 
portion of these essentials were drawn from other States. 
The resources of the South in sugar, syrup, and rice 
seemed ample to meet the wants of the people and the 
army. The large area of the cotton crops occupying 
the most valuable lands of the cotton States rendered the 
supply of grain and meat, in those States, somewhat 
sparse. But the planters wisely determined to curtail 
the cotton, and largely increase the crops of grain, and 
there was but little ground to fear that the confederacy 
would be self-sustaining in all the articles needed to feed 
the people and the army for an indefinite period. 

COMPAKATIVE RESOURCES AND YaLOR. 

It was apparent, however, that the resources of the 
United States were vastly superior to ours in cattle, hogs, 
corn and wheat, from the middle and western States. 
The facilities for internal transportation of troops and 
army stores by railroads and rivers, seemed to be abun- 
dant in both sections. The North also possessed great 
advantages over the South in the supply of mules and 
horses for wagons, artillery, and cavalry. The supply in 
the South was ample for immediate use, and for some 
time to come ; but as the war became long protracted, 
this became an embarrassing subject to us. For war is 
as destructive to horses and mules as to men, and we had 
comparatively few facilities in the South for raising these 
animals. 

Great reliance was placed in the South upon the supe- 
rior courage and bravery of our troops over those of the 
North. While there was no apparent reason to doubt the 
prowess of the South, or the skill of her rising military 
chieftains, but great reason to be proud of both, there 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 209 

did not seem to be good grounds to doubt the soldierly 
qualities of the northern men. The vigorous, physical 
and mental constitutions of the western men, in connec- 
tion with their habits and mode of life, did not seem to 
warrant the conclusion that they would prove deficient 
in courage, endurance, or skill. Drill, exposure to hard- 
ships and privations, and familiarity with danger, did 
much to improve the prowess of the troops from the 
middle and eastern States. The large element of Irish 
composition in the federal army, together with the pres- 
ence of the troops of the regular army who had seen 
much service, were things which an impartial and con- 
siderate spectator could not overlook in order to reach 
the conclusion that federal troops in that war would be 
formidable in battle. There were, however, apparent, 
well-settled facts which warranted the conclusion that the 
Confederates would be a match for the Federals, man for 
man. The fiery impetuosity of their temper, the fact 
that personal physical courage in private life was esteemed 
in the South a higher virtue than it was in the North, the 
familiarity of all our people with the use of firearms, and 
their consequent skill as marksmen, and above all, the- 
consideration that they were fighting in defence of their 
country, homes, firesides and families, against an invad- 
ing army — stimulants which must be wanting to the 
northern troops — seemed to warrant this conclusion. 

They were vastly our superiors in mechanical skill and 
in their resources and preparations for the manufacture 
of machinery, clothing, shoes, blankets, tents, arms, am- 
munition, wagons, rolling stock for railroads, boats for 
river service, transports, gun-boats, and all manner of 
ships of war, and also in navigation. They had a navy, 
we had none. They had an army which they retained, 

14 



210 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

except that most of the army officers of southern birth 
quitted their service to join ours, while we had no army 
and but comparatively few arms or ordnance stores. 
They had a government fully organized and a full repre- 
sentation at foreign courts ; we had to supply the former, 
but were wanting in the latter because foreign govern- 
ments did not recognize our nationality. They had a 
national credit which we had to supply by a judicious use 
of the resources at our command. They had the open 
markets of the world in which to buy and sell, and enlist 
hireling troops to take the place of their citizen soldiers, 
while we were blockaded and our ports of entry sealed 
up except to such ships as were fortunate enough to carry 
on a trade through the blockading squadron of the enemy. 

Such were some of the difficulties that seemed to en- 
viron the Confederate States and stand between us and 
the independence of our country. But we had a deter- 
mined will to be free. We had the peace and security of 
our homes, the safety of our women and children, the 
weal of the present and future generations at stake ; we 
had truth, justice, honor, and humbly trusted that we had 
the just God of battles on our side and would ultimately 
prevail. 

For the causes and with the auspices we have endeav- 
ored faithfully to set forth, the government of the Con- 
federate States, sustain^ by their people, boldly ventured 
upon the expedient of war for that independence. 

The occupation of Forts Pickens and Sumter by the 
forces of the United States, as we have seen, was cause 
of irritation to the people of the Confederacy. The gov- 
ernment took early steps to expel them. While the com- 
mand of the forces and works for the reduction of Fort 
Sumter was confided, as we have seen, to General Beau- 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 211 

regard, those at Pensacola for the purpose of reducing 
Fort Pickens were confided to the command of Gen. 
Braxton Bragg. The country waited for several weeks 
in vain to see the success at Fort Sumter repeated at 
Fort Pickens ; but after weeks of delay the people ascer- 
tained, what was probably much sooner known to the 
commanding general, that the enterprise was impracti- 
cable. 

In the mean time the question absorbed the attention 
of the people, and doubtless of the government, as to 
what mode of attack the Federals would employ ; whether 
they would invade us from the Atlantic and Gulf coast, 
or organize land forces and invade the border States. 

That the military councils of the enemy were guided 
by able and experienced men who had seen much service 
could not be doubted ; while the capacity of those in our 
service to command large forces with success was a prob- 
lem which time and trial alone could solve. It was ex- 
pected of Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, who was at 
the head of the United States army, that he would be 
faithful to his government while in its service ; but by 
many it was doubted whether he would consent to con- 
tinue in that service if it should involve the invasion of Vir- 
ginia, his native State ; and which contained beneath her 
sod the ashes of his own children. The struggle between 
the pride of an eminent and lifelong soldier ; the love of 
military glory ; the ardent attachment he cherished to the 
union of that country, beneath whose flag he had so often 
led her sons to victory, on the one hand ; and the behests 
of a sympathy which would have moved a less stern heart 
than his, and which is common to the most of mankind, 
on the other, must have been one of sore trial to the vet- 
eran chieftain. But the country was soon made acquainted 



212 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

with the stern reahty that Virginia was to be immediately 
invaded under the supreme command of General Scott. 
The occupation of Fortress Munroe and other outposts on 
the Virginia border along the Chesapeake bay, and the 
Potomac river, was soon followed by the advance of United 
States troops across the river opposite the city of Wash- 
ington ; and the occupation of Alexandria and other 
places on the soil of Virginia. All doubt was now dis- 
pelled ; whereupon the Confederate government, in order 
to be near the scene of action, removed from the city of 
Montgomery in Alabama, and fixed its temporary location 
at the city of Richmond in Virginia. Most of the troops 
in the service and those being tendered and received were 
hurried to the Virginia frontier by railroad, to aid in ar- 
resting the progress of and repelling General Scott's 
forces. 

The requisitions for troops by the President upon the 
States were promptly filled by volunteers ; who were so 
eager to engage in the active campaign, and so impatient 
to reach the post of danger, that they could barely be re- 
strained in the camps of instruction until they could be 
taught the ordinary commands and evolutions of the com- 
pany and regimental drill. In most instances, the ex- 
penses of fitting out the volunteers for the field werie borne 
by the men themselves, and by contributions freely made 
by citizens. The sympathy of the people for the absent 
and departing soldiers was deep and universal. The tears 
of multitudes of people in all conditions and circumstances 
in life, and even of the slaves, flowed copiously, betoken- 
ing the warmth of their devotion to the departing compa- 
nies and regiments. The men of the towns and cities, 
and along the lines of railroad, greeted them with shouts 
and huzzas ; and the women with the waving of miniature 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 213 

flags and handkerchiefs, and with smiles of admiration, 
and words of comfort and cheer ; and lavished upon them 
the substantials and luxuries of life. In most houses where 
a sick soldier might chance to lodge, he was an object of 
more tender regard than a sick inmate. The bodies of 
the dead were returned under escort to the bereaved rel- 
atives at home. The enthusiasm of the people was only 
surpassed by that of the soldiers themselves, and they re- 
sponded to the greetings of the people everywhere with 
shouts and yells that rent the air, and spoke a language 
of determination and zeal which nothing could surpass, 
and which no one could misunderstand. The pay of a 
soldier was no part of the inducement to volunteer, in per- 
haps a large majority of cases. Of the troops who were 
entering the army at this period, it is probable that there 
were as many who would have paid, if necessary, for the 
privilege of getting into service as there were who would 
have declined to go for want of pay. In cases not a few, 
where the poor men who had not subsistence to leave with 
their families at home, and who desired to volunteer, 
found no difficulty in procuring the promises of their more 
opulent neighbors to provide for them in their absence ; 
and thousands departed for the field upon the faith of such 
unsubstantial reliances whose families were dependent 
upon their daily labor for food and raiment, and unable 
to procure these without them. The spirit of volunteer- 
ing was only equalled by the willingness and anxiety of 
the people at home, of both sexes, to aid in whatever work 
or contribution seemed necessary to forward the good 
cause; in a word, for the first few months, war, went in 
silver slippers, and wore only an aspect of glory and re- 
nown. 

The young men on their way to the war, sported, by 



214 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

their sides, savage looking dirks and pistols, some anti- 
quated, others of the more recent improvements, as if 
they expected to fight the enemy with them ; and many 
doubtless expected that sort of rencounter, and desired 
the opportunity to display their superior prowess in the 
imminent deadly breach. 

There was extant, a great mania for what, in the par- 
lance of this day is denominated "Zouave," which means, 
so far as I can comprehend it, that feature in the military 
which delights in exhibiting, to^ the admiring gaze of 
spectators, a fantastical and gay military suit, of which 
there seems to be no settled model, and of actions and 
evolutions, equally fantastic, as if the whole was intended 
to strike terror into the hearts of the country people. 
For certainly a brave and disclipined army on either side 
would not run from the fantastical array of colors and 
costumes until those who wore them should show either 
superior courage or skill in the use of arms, but would 
delight in the advantages of vision this gay dress would 
afford them on the field. As to the manual exercises and 
quirkish motions of the Zouaves, if it should ever occur 
that a battle is fought hand to hand with the bayonets, 
gun-stocks and barrels, instead of bullets, they might be 
of great benefit, for the reason that the men in that case 
will already have been taught to strike and dodge the 
enemy — to run from and pursue him, as the casualties of 
the scuffle might render either tactics necessary. 

In reference to most men whom the world calls patriots 
it may be noted, that there is a singular mixture of devo- 
tion to country with devotion to self. I am not able to 
analyze it so far as to designate the exact parts and pro- 
portions of each which constitute the great military hero, 
the great politician and statesman, and the demagogue. 



FIRST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 215 

I am certain, however, that the proportions differ in the 
different classes, and in different men of the same class. 
There is no doubt but there were some few men who 
raised companies and regiments for service in this war, 
and many privates who volunteered, from a sense of duty 
to the country, realizing at the same that it was at the 
sacrifice of their personal and private interests. It was 
evident, however, from the beginning of hostilities, that a 
man who did not take part in the war would stand no 
chance whatever for promotion in the civil department, 
after it should have terminated. Men love wealth be- 
cause it gives power, and in popular governments they 
love office for the same reason. This prevailing mania 
has made a majority of the intellectual portion of our 
countrymen place-hunters and office-seekers ; universal 
suffrage and eligibility to offices of honor and profit has 
the effect to stimulate thousands of the ignorant and 
uneducated to seek promotion to the lower grades of 
office. The volunteering and raising of military forces is 
more a matter of calculation than most persons engaging 
in them would be willing to confess. 

If the war should be of short duration then they ex- 
pect to wear their laurels with gratification and profit 
to themselves. If it should last long, then it were better 
to have gone into it while there was opportunity to se- 
cure the positions of lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels, 
etc., than to ultimately have to go as private soldiers to 
fill up the decimated companies. Then this love of office 
and power was the very salt of the country, for it stimu- 
lated the aspiring men not only to volunteer but to bring 
to bear all their personal influence upon their fellow citi- 
zens to induce them to enter the service. Thus the cause 
of the country had its advocates and orators of different 



216 OPENING OE HOSTILITIES. 

caliber, and upon as widely variant processes of reason and 
logic, in every neighborhood throughout our whole bor- 
ders. This same spirit coupled with natural bravery and 
the love of martial glory was a safe guaranty for the good 
conduct of these men after they had entered the service. 
It was a little humiliating, however, to observe that while 
the change from the walks of civil life to the exposures 
and associations of the camp, removed in a great measure 
from the restraints of religion and female influence, there 
were sad changes in the moral bearing of many men. 
Yet at the same time they had not discarded petty jeal- 
ousies and contentions for place. This natural weakness 
of human nature had much to do in developing the causes 
which led to the dismemberment of the old government, 
and its effects upon the cause in which we were strug- 
gling were to be dreaded if the war should continue for 
many years. 

The rapidity of increase in the forces on both sides 
during the months of May, June, and July evinced to all 
that the campaign of Virginia was to be upon a much 
larger scale than perhaps either government at first an- 
ticipated. It is probably true that the exaggeration by 
the press and people for sensational purposes and in a 
spirit of braggadocio had the effect from each side to 
stimulate the other to double diligence to raise and send 
forv/ard countervailing forces. The chief difficulty in the 
way of the South was in furnishing arms to the troops who 
were willing and anxious to volunteer. Hence the atten- 
tion of the government was at an early stage of the war di- 
rected to the subject of importing arms through the block- 
ade from Europe, and of manufacturing them within the 
Confederacy. In this department it appears that no time 
was lost or energies spared to meet the pressing demand. 



FIRST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 217 

The policy of President Lincoln seems to have been 
different from that of President Davis in reference to 
appointments to high military rank. The former seemed 
willing in many instances to trust civilians with impor- 
tant commands, while the latter seemed to adhere with 
great pertinacity to men of military education and expe- 
rience in the field. His fondness and partiality for gradu- 
ates of the United States military school at West Point, 
where he was educated, had early become a subject of 
general remark, and of complaint among those gentlemen 
who held high political, professional and social stations, 
and who had not had in early life the advantages of West 
Point. and of whose fitness to command armies the president 
had not been fully impressed. Mr. Lincoln had, how- 
ever, found a countercheck to the evils of his policy in 
that of promptly removing the appointees when they gave 
proof of incompetency. 

The plan of General Scott's campaign in Virginia was 
to invade from four material points at the same time. 
Generals McClellan and Rosecrans advanced into that 
portion of the State west of and among the Alleghany 
mountains, known as Western Virginia, with forces vari- 
ously estimated from five to fifteen thousand men. Gen- 
eral Patterson commandino; a laro;er force advanced from 
the upper Potomac into that fair and fertile region along 
the Shenandoah river known as the valley of Virginia. 
General McDovv^ell with the principal column moved from 
the direction of Washington on the northeast of the 
State towards Richmond, while General Butler held the 
command in the peninsula. General Huger of the Con- 
federate States provisional army held the command of 
our forces at Norfolk; General John B. Magruder those 
in the peninsula ; those fronting the enemy's advance 



218 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

from Washington were under Major-General G. T. Beau- 
regard ; while the army of the Shenandoah in the valley 
was confided to the command of Gen. Joseph E. Johns- 
ton. The forces sent to Western Virginia, and which 
seemed to have remained in detached portions under Gen. 
J. B. Floyd, and other subordinate commanders, were 
under the command of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Thus it 
appears the government, with a commendable magnanim- 
ity and zeal, but with questionable propriety, undertook 
the defence of the whole State. The impression of the 
country seems to have been that Western Virginia was 
not only disloyal to us, but that the expulsion of the 
Federal troops from it was impracticable, and that the 
occupation of it by the enemy would prove comparatively 
harmless to us, as the people there were separated by 
mountains from the true and loyal people of Virginia, 
over which it was as difficult for the enemy to advance 
and invade further, as General Lee found it to carry his 
troops and their supplies. The detachments of the forces, 
when they met the enemy, it was generally against supe- 
rior numbers and sometimes against superior skill. The 
hardships and exposures to rain and mud during the 
prevalence of the camp diseases of the new troops, sick- 
ness and deaths, retreating before superior forces, and 
notwithstanding occasional successes and partial advan- 
tages gained over the enemy, the general want of success 
of the campaign in the mountains had a demoralizing 
tendency upon the troops; failed to accomplish the expul- 
sion of the enemy from the country, or any substantial 
good to the cause of the South. 

The surprise and defeat of Confederate forces at Lau- 
rel Hill, an advanced qut-post under the command of Brig- 
adier-General Garnett who was killed in the action, and 



FIRST YEAR IN THE EIELD. 219 

succeeded in command by Col. James N. Ramsey of the 
first regiment of Georgia volunteersj by the Federal forces 
under General McClellan may be recorded as the first 
reverse of our arms. The manifestation of high soldierl}^ 
qualities and talents on the part of General McClellan, 
and of great cunning and energy on the part of his Ger- 
man subaltern, General Rosecrans, caused no little trepi- 
dation in the Southern heart as foreshadowing that we 
had to combat with military skill as well as superior 
mumbers. 

The splendid air-castles, built by men of sanguine tem- 
perament, of easy victory, were vanished into thin vapor, 
and the unwarranted calculations of thousands of good 
and true men, that only a few months were necessary to 
demonstrate to the enemy our superior prowess, and com- 
pel him to desist from his vain attempt at subjugation, 
were 'modified by the sober second thought that our suc- 
cess was to cost more toil and tribulation, and a greater 
outlay of blood and treasure, than was at first anticipated. 
The birth of the nation was to be attended with pro- 
tracted anguish. 

And now candor compels the confession that the cam- 
paign of 1861 in Western Virginia ended in ill-success, 
while in connection with the current events of the year 
it had not impaired the general confidence of the people. 

So far as is known, the war was opened in Virginia, and 
the first shot was fired from a battery at Sewell's point, 
under the command of Capt. Peyton Colquitt of Colum- 
bus, Georgia, upon a Federal gun-boat. The battalion to 
which Captain Colquitt's company was attached was the 
first organized force sent from Georgia to Virginia, and 
perhaps the first from any other State. As an illustra- 
tion of the spirit of the people, and the energy of Gov- 



220 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

ernor Brown of Georgia, I will be pardoned for the 
allusion to the manner in which this battalion was raised 
and sent off. 

Governor Letcher of Virginia telegraphed from Rich- 
mond to Governor Brown at Milledgeville that four com- 
panies were needed immediately at Norfolk, and, not 
having them ready, he desired to know if Georgia could 
despatch them at once. Having no organized forces in 
camp, the governor went to the office and, through the 
operators of the wires, got captains of city volunteer com- 
panies, Collins and Hardeman of Macon, Doyall of Griffin, 
and Colquitt of Columbus, to their respective telegraph 
offices, and avsked them if they would respond to Gov- 
ernor Letcher's call. All answered in the affirmative ; 
but some asked one, and some two days to get ready, 
the members of their companies being citizens and not 
being in camp. The governor informed them that they 
must decline, or go immediately. " Then we are ready," 
was the unanimous reply. And on the following day 
Governor Brown had the gratification to announce to 
Governor Letcher, by the telegraph, that the four com- 
panies were on the railroads en route to Virginia. In 
one or two cases the ladies of the city met and made up 
uniform suits for the whole companies before the hour for 
their departure the next morning. 

The movements of the enemy on the peninsula brought 
them in collision with General Magruder's forces on the 
tenth day of June, 1861, at Bethel church, where a bril- 
liant success was achieved by the Confederates, attended 
with considerable slaughter of the Federals, and a re- 
markable escape from casualties on our part. In this 
engagement. Col. D. H. Hill, of a North Carolina regi- 
ment, acted so gallant a part as to attract the attention 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 221 

and applause of the public and honorable promotion 
bj the government. The result of the battle, while it 
checked and discouraged the enemy on the peninsula, 
had the effect to electrify the South, and served greatly 
to mature the growing assurance of the army and peo- 
ple. The battle of Bethel was but a skirmish compared 
with other fields already made memorable in the annals 
of the war ; and is likely, on account of the smallness 
of the force engaged in it, to sink into insignificance. 
But its consequences and effects are not to be measured 
in the faithful records of the revolution by the numbers 
of the slain, or the extent of the temporary advantages 
gained over the foe. For in the morale of the army 
much depended upon the results of the first conflict of 
arms ; and the effect of this success told wonderfully 
upon the bearing of other troops upon other fields distant 
from Bethel church. 

Courage in battle nerves men to act and endure, but 
when separated from confidence of success it is of but 
little avail. There are doubtless thousands of men who 
at the outset would not fight in single combat, but having 
confidence in those associated with them in line of battle 
they did not yield to the promptings of fear, but stood 
firm and discharged their duty well until familiarity with 
danger made them careless of its approach, trained and 
inured them to action and endurance, and made them 
good soldiers. 

From the tone of the public journals in the United 
States from the early part of the summer it was evident 
that there was a strong outside pressure upon General 
Scott towards a forward movement for the purpose of cap- 
turing Richmond, the seat of the Confederate government. 
But this time-honored chieftain, well aware of the obsta- 



222 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

cles in the undoubted valor of Southern troops and the 
skill of Southern commanders, better known to him than 
to the country at large, prudently awaited the maturity 
of his ample preparations in the accumulation of men, 
munitions, and transportation, upon which he relied for a 
successful campaign which should crown his brilliant ca- 
reer. The public anxiety was intense. General Johnston, 
with characteristic caution, maneuvered against General 
Patterson in the valley, and awaited his advance in a state 
of preparation to give him battle should he return to 
make the attack which the public was led to expect for 
several weeks. On the 19th of July a portion of General 
McDowell's forces had been put in motion and were en- 
countered and signally repulsed by a part of General 
Beauregard's forces along the east bank of Bull Run creek. 
The intention to attack General Beauregard in large force 
being apparent to General Johnston he quickly transferred 
his command to the east of the Blue Ridge, and by a 
forced march formed a junction with General Beauregard 
in time to take a prominent part in the general engage- 
ment occasioned by the advance of General McDowell in 
force on Sunday morning, July 21st, near Manassas junc- 
tion. General Johnston, with a courtesy as rare as his 
genius, awarded to General Beauregard the command of 
the field although he was of superior rank. The battle 
raged, with dreadful loss on both sides, from early in the 
morning until the afternoon was considerably advanced, 
and with fortune seeming rather to favor the Federals. 
The regular army as well as the volunteer forces fought 
with a heroism worthy of any cause, which, with the ad- 
vantage of largely superior numbers, accounts for the 
advantages gained over the Confederates. 

It is said, that the enemy were unaware of the fact that 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 223 

Johnston had formed a junction with Beauregard prior to 
the engagement, and that they were fighting against their 
combined forces; and that the arrival, at an opportune 
moment and place, of General Kirby Smith with a divi- 
sion of reinforcements, in sight of the contending armies, 
was supposed by the Federals to be the coming of Gen- 
eral Johnston's army from the valley. From this suppo- 
sition or some unknown cause, a general panic seized the 
Federal army, followed by a disgraceful stampede of the 
whole force, leaving everything in disorder, and complete 
victory in the hands of the Confederates. 

It is said, that to the Federal army, at a respectful dis- 
tance in the rear, there were attached a number of per- 
sons of rank in both sexes who had come out to witness 
the sport of driving the rebels before the grand Federal 
army ; the capture of Richmond, and the suppression of 
the rebellion by the planting of the United States flag 
upon the dome of the Capitol building. Numerous amaz- 
ing relics have been preserved by our troops, gathered 
from the field of disorder, which with articles of more value 
were scattered in the track of their retreat. Among them 
envelopes of letters with mottoes printed announcing the 
fall of Richmond; others with the picture of a woman 
placing the flag upon the Capitol dome. So certain were 
the ^United States army and Northern people of an easy 
victory, and an almost unobstructed march through our 
country. 

Hence it is by no means unnatural that dismay should 
have suddenly seized the public mind upon the announce- 
ment of this unexpected disaster. 

It is a misfortune to be regretted, that after the hard 
marches and exposures of the Southern troops our army 
was not in a condition to advance, follow up, and improve 



224 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

the advantages thus gamed. The troops had evidently 
been chafed by the restraints imposed either by the pol- 
icy of the administration in not carrying the war into the 
enemy's country, and resting our cause upon the defensive; 
or by the want of means and outfit to invade. Our army 
was made of volunteers who went out for action ; the de- 
moralizing effect of keeping them idle in camp was palpa- 
ble, especially when they feel that the opportunities of 
success were diminishing with the constant increase of the 
enemy's forces. Thus they had lain comparatively idle, 
and seen General McClellan take the place of General 
McDowell, and by his military character restore confidence 
to the broken spirits of the enemy ; and by his skill and 
energy they had not only recovered from the deadly blow 
stricken at Manassas, but become more formidable than 
before ; and our forces were again thrown upon the de- 
fensive. 

In this action at Manassas, South Carolina lost, among 
others her gallant son, Brigadier-General Barnard H. Bee; 
while the hearts of all Georgians were made sad by the 
fall of her intrepid son, Brigadier-General Francis S. Bar- 
tow. A number of officers before but little known, by 
their gallantry and ability attracted the public notice ; 
among them Brigadier-General James Longstreet, of Ala- 
bama ; Brigadier-General Thomas J. Jackson, of Virginia; 
and Brigadier-General Bonham, of South Carolina. 

The public confidence in Generals Johnston and Beau- 
regard was strong and abiding, and the country bowed 
with a becoming reverence and resignation to the policy 
of the administration, supposing and believing that the 
facts, if fully known, would show the superior wisdom of 
the executive counsel in restraining the further advance 
of our army after the victory of Manassas. There were 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 225 

many able men among us who believed that, even if we 
were prepared to strike the enemy by invading him, the 
true policy for us in the end was still to act on the de- 
fensive ; while numerous others were very restive under 
the policy, believing that the only true mode for us to de- 
fend was to advance and strike blows thick and heavy. 
They preferred to make the enemy's country the seat of 
the war ; and to make them, as far as possible, not only 
sustain the losses and submit to the depredations neces- 
sarily following from the presence of large armies, but 
draw our support from their territory. They urged their 
policy especially as the question of provisions was likely 
to become a vital one in the South if the war was long 
protracted. It was supposed that under this policy the 
northern people would soon feel themselves directly in- 
terested in the cessation of hostilities, in which event the 
popular pressure upon Mr. Lincoln would be for peace 
instead of war. It was insisted that upon the defensive 
policy the government had adopted we not only would 
have our entire army to feed from our own resources, but 
must necessarily suffer all the damage that would result 
from the presence of two large armies upon our soil. 
Those who agreed with the President upon his defensive 
policy argued in this wise : We only asked to depart in 
peace and to be left alone prior to the war, and that is all 
we desire now. We do not desire to lay waste the ene- 
my's country or to subjugate the northern people. To 
act upon this high moral theory must make for us friends 
abroad and even in the enemy's country. If we were to 
invade the North the case would be radically changed; 
our enemies will then be fighting in the defence of home 
and all that is dear or sacred to a people, and, therefore, 
whatever differences may exist among them as to the 

15 



226 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

propriety of the war will be immediately forgotten and 
they will present to us an unbroken front. That, in a 
word, it woi^ld be folly to think of invading a country 
like the United States, with a population as intelligent as 
our own, three times our numbers, and vastly superior to 
us in arms and provisions. However much we desired to 
see the evils of the war turned upon the invaders them- 
selves, these reasons seemed to possess great weight and 
rather commended the prudence of the President and 
his Cabinet to the more thinking and cautious of our 
people. 

The reverse of the Federals at Manassas seemed to have 
had the effect, after the first shock of disaster and disap- 
pointment, to arouse the energies of the government at 
Washington and of the people of the United States, who 
had up to that time not realized the difficulties in the way 
of suppressing the rebellion and restoring the Union. 
This effect was manifest from the general and extensive 
preparation upon sea and land to invest the whole Con- 
federacy. In the South the effect was in a certain sense 
injurious. It is true it established general belief in the 
success of the revolution and had the desired effect in 
building up the confidence of the army, which were so 
much accomplished in the right direction if kept within 
proper bounds ; but when it caused a relaxation in the 
energies of the people it could not be otherwise than dele- 
terious. Abroad, Confederate stock went up and, from 
the tone of European journals, it was evident our cause 
had made a rapid stride at foreign courts. The prospect 
of early national recognition seemed to dawn upon us 
with a most encouraging lustre. The anxiety of the 
Washington cabinet upon this subject was too apparent 
to be concealed, and all the arts of diplomacy were brought 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 227 

to bear upon the governments of England and France to 
prevent recognition. 

In view of the prospect of opening diplomatic relations 
with those governments, and for the purpose of expedit- 
ing that desirable end, President Davis appointed Mr. 
Mason of Virginia and Mr. Slidell of Louisiana as minis- 
ters to their courts. The gentlemen succeeded in evad- 
ing the blockaders upon our coast, and reached Havana, 
in Cuba, where they embarked on a British steamer 
bound for Europe. The vessel containing the ministers 
was captured by the United States naval forces on the 
8th of November, forcibly entered, and the ministers were 
carried away and confined in a northern prison. The 
insult thus offered to the flag of Great Britain was made 
the subject of complaint against the government through 
Her Majesty's minister at Washington, and a rupture 
between those governments was expected by many, and 
ardently wished for by most of our people. But they 
misunderstood the genius of the prime minister at Wash- 
ington, and the spirit of the government. For the 
amende was promptly made, Messrs. Mason and Slidell 
released and forwarded on their mission to Europe, in 
pursuance to the demands of the English government. 

The government of the United States had hitherto, 
prior to this war, refused to accede to the proposals of 
European powers to dhoYi^h. privateering between civilized 
nations at war — regarding it as a relic of barbarism, and 
inconsistent with the present advanced stage of Chris- 
tianity and civilization — and to place it upon the same 
footing with piracy. And now that President Davis had 
adopted that among other legitimate modes of warfare, 
and inasmuch as the Confederates had no maritime com- 
merce, and could not therefore be damaged in case the 



228 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

enemy should adopt it, the pohcy of aboHshing it by the 
code governing belligerent nations became desirable on 
the part of the United States. It had been a weapon in 
their own hands heretofore, and now its keen edge was to 
be turned against them. But the governments of Europe, 
inasmuch as it was a point between the dismembered sec- 
tions of the government which had declined to accede to 
their wishes to abolish it, prudently and sagaciously de- 
clined at this juncture to interpose in the matter. And 
as the case stood, while we were subjected to the ravages 
of invading enemies upon land, the authors of those mis- 
chiefs felt the fangs of a deadly serpent upon the high 
seas. 

If the enemy had confined his depredations in prop- 
erty to that belonging to or in the service of our govern- 
ment, and his war upon persons to those in arms or 
otherwise in the government service, the moral sensibili- 
ties of the South would have been strongly appealed to 
to respect private property of the people of the United 
States whether on sea or land. But it was difficult to see 
how a merchant's cargo of goods on board an ocean 
steamer should be held more sacred than a farmer's smoke- 
house or corn-crib in Virginia ; or the ship upon which 
the goods are carried entitled to any more courtesy at the 
hands of our people than the private residence of non- 
combatants, their fences, growing crops, stock and poultry, 
received at the hands of our invaders. 

It is one of the evils of war in its most refined sense, 
and where all the conventionalities of civilized belligerent 
nations are strictly observed, that the innocent must, to 
a greater or less extent, suffer with the guilty ; and it 
should address itself to the Christian and humane senti- 
ments of mankind as one of the strongest reasons why the 



FIRST YEAR IN" THE FIELD. 229 

martial disposition of nations should be replaced by a sen- 
timent more in accordance with the teachings of the New 
Testament ; but hope in this direction, which had sprung 
up under the general spread of biblical knowledge in 
America, had taken its exit. There was no alternative ; 
the regeneration of the nations in this respect lies through 
the ordeal of a baptism of the people in each other's blood. 
When the appetites of the Americans for power, plunder 
and glory shall be satiated on the one hand ; or the love 
of justice and freedom be extinct on the other ; then, and 
probably not till then, will they cease to resort to arms 
to settle their debates. 

A great Southern Senator, Mr. Toombs, said in his place, 
" The last analysis of liberty is the blood of the brave." 
This liberty of which the Senator spoke is a divinity that 
has been worshipped under different guises and forms in 
all ages of the world. Altars have been erected to her in 
almost every part of the habitable globe, which have 
smoked with the blood of millions upon millions of vic- 
'tims, and still her cormorant appetite is unsatisfied ; her 
rites and ceremonies are as variegated under different cir- 
cumstances and in different countries and ages as the color 
and form of the clouds She has an elder and younger 
sister who have ever remained close by her on either side ; 
and who each, ever and anon, have passed by her name, 
and borne her image ; they are despotism and licentious- 
ness. Upon their altars too, have untold millions been 
offered. It would have been equally true if the Senator 
had said—" They have their last analysis in the blood of 
the brave ; and brave men when once aroused, provoked 
and enlisted will fight as well for the one as for the other ; 
and upon abstract as well as concrete ideas of either." 

At an early stage of hostilities, the Federals, to hide a 



230 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

deeper scheme and more deadly purpose, began to treat 
fugitive slaves as contraband of war ; and to afford them 
shelter and protection. They held that inasmuch as slaves 
were laborers producing supplies for the South, and thus 
upholding the so-called rebellion, it was legitimate to de- 
prive us of that support ; that argument followed to its 
logical sequences would, in case such a step should prom- 
ise a more speedy termination and certain success of their 
enterprise, naturally lead to a general blow at the institu- 
tion of slavery — not by statute, but by the bayonet. Thus 
this struggle for political independence wound up in one 
to prevent our enemies from enslaving us, in order to lib- 
erate our slaves. The struggle unfortunately took that 
direction, and was attended with partial success to the 
Federals ; and they were able to penetrate the interior of 
the country, and it necessarily entailed great suffering 
upon the people on account of the failure of bread crops 
from the deficiency in the labor department ; while the 
issue appearing to be for and against the institution of 
African slavery in the eyes of all foreign nations, those 
who were against slavery sympathized with the Federals j 
hence, as the leading nations of the world at that time 
were opposed to slavery, the conclusion was that they 
rather took sides with our enemies, irrespective of the 
true merits of our quarrel. 

At an early stage of hostilities, the scheme of a produce 
loan was put on foot by the Confederate government, by 
which agents were sent through the country to appeal to 
the people to come up and meet the wants of the govern- 
ment, and enable her to negotiate for arms and munitions 
of war, and such articles as were indispensable, by pledg- 
ing each a given quantity of their produce of corn, wheat, 
cotton, rice, sugar, syrup, bacon, beef, etc., to be deliv- 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 231 

ered by a certain day at certain specified points on the 
lines of public transportation. To this appeal, thousands 
made a liberal response and large amounts were sub- 
scribed, for which government securities were to be taken 
by the people in payment. 

One of the chief difficulties under which we labored at 
that time was the diffuse nature of our military opera- 
tions, rendered necessarily so by the many and far dis- 
tant points at which the enemy had seen fit to assail us. 
It was considered a piece of masterly strategy on the part 
of the enemy to make demonstrations in every possible 
direction, and thereby call off and weaken our small 
forces, and make them a prey to their larger forces. 

The people of the Confederacy had manifested a pecu- 
liar sensitiveness where the enemy approached them, and 
seemed to insist that the government should send forces 
wherever the enemy made a demonstration. By this 
means the President was harassed between the desire to 
concentrate his forces, and the disposition to meet the 
wants of the people in every direction. Those upon the 
threatened coast seemed to think the energies of the gov- 
ernment should be mainly directed to the protection of our 
seaports, while the people more remote thought the cities 
and sandy plains upon the Atlantic and Gulf coast were 
of little importance compared with the grain-growing 
regions of the border States. 

While the campaign in Virginia to which we have al- 
luded was in progress during the current year 1861, scenes 
were enacted and operations conducted in other parts of 
the Confederacy of deep and absorbing interest. The 
work of fortifying the cities of Wilmington, Charleston, 
Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, and numerous other places 
had gone bravely on, and the public mind, for a long time 



232 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

anxious upon the subject, seemed to rest in the belief that 
the approaches to these important points were sufficiently 
guarded and fortified to justify the hope that they would 
be held against any attack likely to be made upon them. 
It seemed to be a matter of the first importance to pre- 
vent the entrance of the enemy into the Mississippi river 
from above or below ; as the occupation by them of that 
stream would sever the Confederacy and destroy the com- 
munication between the States east and west of it. Hence 
the strong garrisons that were sent to the forts command- 
ing the river below New Orleans, and the fortifications at 
different points from Memphis to the neighborhood of the 
confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The dem- 
onstrations of the enemy early in the summer made it 
necessary to establish a line upon the southern border of 
Kentucky to repel the advance of the enemy at the sev- 
eral points that were threatened. Major-General Zolli- 
koffer, of Tennessee, with a Confederate force held the 
command of the southeast part of Kentucky near the 
Cumberland Mountains. General Albert Sydney John- 
ston, with his headquarters at Bowling Green in Kentucky, 
had command of the troops at that point and others thence 
west to the Mississippi river, where he succeeded Brigadier- 
General S. B. Buckner in command. Major-General Har- 
dee, of Georgia, and Brigadier-General Gideon J. Pillow, 
of Tennessee, had for several months held commands 
along the same line west of the river and in the southeast 
portion of Missouri. The entrance of the Cumberland 
and Tennessee rivers into the State of Tennessee had been 
provided against by the erection of Forts Henry and 
Donaldson near the border of Tennessee and Kentucky. 
The high military character of Gen. Sydney Johnston had 
given confidence to the public that the farther advance 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 233 

from that region would be effectually guarded, and that 
if Major-General Buell in command of the Federal forces 
should attack him, the victory of the Southern troops 
would be confidently relied on. 

On the 7th of November, Brigadier-General Pillow 
achieved a brilliant success over the Federal forces, at 
Belmont, west of the Mississippi river, after a desperate 
conQict, driving them hotly pursued for several miles to 
their gunboats. In this action Brigadier-General Frank 
Cheatham, of Nashville, bore a gallant and conspicuous part; 
and also Bishop, now General, Leonidas Polk, of Louisiana. 

Upon the invasion of Missouri by the Federal General 
Lyon, and his capture and dispersion of the organized 
State militia. General Jackson tendered to Ex-Governor 
Sterling Price the chief command of the whole Missouri 
State forces, with the rank of major-general, which posi- 
tion he accepted ; and by his eminent soldierly qualities 
and vast personal popularity succeeded in collecting 
around him a band of determined Missourians and entered 
upon a series of skilful operations against Lyon which 
endeared him to the hearts of the Confederate people. 
Brigadier- General Jeff. Thompson, a native of Virginia, 
and a bold and skilful pioneer of the West, residing in Mis- 
souri, upon the call for the State troops by Governor 
Jackson, organized early in the summer of 1861 a brigade 
of 2,500 men as a separate command with which he, with 
a sleepless vigilance, annoyed the Federals during the fall 
months, skirmishing with them almost continually. His 
engagements at Bloomington, Pattonville, Black Water 
Station, Big River Bridge, and Frederickstown in October 
had given the name of Jeff. Thompson an early celebrity 
in the annals of the war in Missouri and Arkansas, and 
rendered it a terror to the Federals in that region. 



234 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

The Federal General Ljon, by force of superior num- 
bers, activity, perseverance and energy, succeeded in 
driving General Price before him nearly to the south- 
west border of the State, when he united his forces with 
those of Gen. Benjamin McCulloch, the partisan leader, 
whose laurels won in the Mexican war were still green, 
and pointed to him as a rising star in the revolution. 
McCulloch's forces consisted of troops from Texas, his 
adopted State, Arkansas and Louisiana. A severe and 
sanguinary engagement took place on fhe 9th of August 
at Oak Hill near Springfield, west of the Ozark moun- 
tains, in Missouri, in which General McCulloch held the 
ranking command, and bore himself with a boldness and 
intrepidity never surpassed in the annals of the war. 
The superior gallantry and skill of the Southern men 
were everywhere conspicuous, and resulted in a complete 
victory over the forces of General Lyon. The announce- 
ment was received with great joy throughout the Con- 
federacy. The beauty of the picture, however, was 
greatly marred by the fact that the two commanders, 
Generals Price and McCulloch, fell into a dispute which 
was made public, about the honors of the day's achieve- 
ments, and the parts respectively borne by the Missou- 
rians, and McCulloch's troops. 

Brig.-Gen. John S. Williams, a native of Kentucky, re- 
siding at the opening of the war in southern Illinois, 
being driven out for his Southern sentiments, came to 
Kentucky, and under authority of the President raised a 
force of about 1,500 men armed with shot-guns and coun- 
try-rifles to operate against the Federals, and rendezvoused 
at Prestonsburg. General Nelson, in command of 5,000 
Federal troops, approached, and Williams retreated to 
Piketon, whither Nelson followed. Williams selected a 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 235 

strong position at Ivy Creek, where Nelson was disas- 
trously repulsed, and his army disorganized. Williams 
only lost eight men. 

The autumn months were enlivened by an engage- 
ment at Dranesville in northern Virginia ; the surprise 
and capture by night of the Federal garrison on Santa 
Rosa Island in Florida, and numerous conflicts and skir- 
mishes on different parts of the extended field of operations. 

On the 20th day of October, a sanguinary engagement 
was followed by a splendid victory for the Confederate 
arms under the command of General Evans of South 
Carolina, at Leesburg, near the Potomac river in Virginia. 
The Federal forces that had crossed at that point were 
under the command of Generals Stone and Baker, the 
latter of whom was killed upon the field. The battle is 
said to have been conducted with skill upon the part of 
the Confederate commanders, and with inordinate gal- 
lantry on the part of officers and troops. The retreat of 
the enemy from the field was, if possible, more disgrace- 
ful than that at Manassas in July before. Discarding 
arms and everything which could retard their flight, leav- 
ing artillery on the field, and a large number of prisoners 
in our hands, they crowded down the hill to the river in 
the most promiscuous and confused masses to escape by 
their boats across the river, pursued by the Confederates, 
and mown down at every step, while the well, the sick, 
wounded and dying were crowded into the boats to over- 
flowing, and all in the wildest consternation and dismay. 
One densely crowded boat sunk in the middle of the 
stream, and many of the unfortunates were drowned. It 
adds to the disgrace of the Federals at Leesburg that they 
fought, and were whipped, with a force largely superior to 
that of the Confederates under General Evans, The 



236 ■ OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

slaughter of Federal troops is described as immense, and 
their public journals did not attempt to conceal the fact 
that the defeat was overwhelming and disgraceful. 

The first of November was the time fixed by law for 
the election of a president and vice-president of the Con- 
federate States to be installed in February next, under 
the permanent constitution, when the provisional govern- 
ment should have expired by its own limitation. It was 
evident from the general tone of public journals in the 
South, and from every source of information, that the 
great mass of the people retained their confidence in the 
wisdom and fidelity of President Davis and Vice-president 
Stephens, and were content to have them elected and 
placed in power for the next six years, but were averse 
to agitation and controversy, such as would be likely to 
flow from opposition in the approaching election. Such 
opposition could not spring out of any difference in the 
principles and aims of the revolution. No great issues 
had sprung up, and there seemed to be no grounds for a 
contest except it should be based upon a want of confi- 
dence in the administration, or a personal preference for 
other men. Hence no opposing ticket was offered, and 
the incumbents were elected by the unanimous vote of 
the people, so far as they chose to exercise the elective 
franchise. It cannot be overlooked, however, that there 
was an unorganized element of opposition, which was not 
only espoused by men of ability, but found expression in 
numerous severe criticisms in such leading journals as the 
Richmond Examiner and the Charleston Mercury. The 
talents employed in the conduct of these journals for- 
bade their being treated with contempt, and rendered 
them a source of real annoyance to the friends of har- 
mony, who believed that the opposition was not founded 



FIKST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 237 

upon the highest motives of patriotism. But of its merits 
we did not undertake to determine, feeling that time alone 
could fully enable an impartial public to decide. 

The effect of the enemy's blockade was everywhere 
visible upon the people in all grades and conditions in life 
in the South ; and in nothing was it more striking than 
in the dress of ladies, and the curtailing of table luxuries. 
The display of homespun skirts by ladies of wealth and 
position had a wonderful effect upon the lovers of style 
and fashion in the less affluent grades of society. Knitting 
of socks and sewing upon garments for soldiers became 
elegant employments in the female circle ; while those 
who had not servants to work for them, plied their busy 
hands daily in the manufacture of cloth for their own 
families, and their absent relatives in the army. The 
cutting off of the supply of coffee, and consequent sus- 
pension of its use, and the substitution of teas made from 
wheat, rye, barley, potatoes, and other articles according 
to the tastes of the people, was rapidly curing a national 
disease of the people in the Confederate States; and the 
effects were everywhere visible in the improved complex- 
ion of female cheeks and in the general diminution of ner- 
vous headaches, after the first effects of the privation sub- 
sided. The use of coffee as a stimulant and sedative, for 
its pleasurable temporary effects, had produced a general 
disease of the nervous constitution, requiring the applica- 
tion periodically according to habit to allay the nervous 
irritability which coffee itself produced ; hence the sus- 
pension of its use was a sore trial generally to females, 
and most persons of a nervous temperament ; but there 
was scarcely a case occurred under my observation in 
which the general health was not benefited as soon as 
the constitution could rally and recuperate from the inju- 



238 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

rious effects which coffee, through years of indulgence, 
had produced. 

If the war should have had the effect also to prevent 
the general use of spirituous liquors and tobacco, we should 
have been richly repaid in a national point of view for the 
losses we sustained ; but these articles being so largely 
produced within the Confederacy, there was but little 
ground to hope for this reform. There was ground to 
hope that the general improvement in the physical con- 
dition of the women in the South, from quitting the use 
of coffee, and resorting to industrial habits and pursuits, 
would tell wonderfully upon the mental and physical con- 
stitution of the generation to follow us. Now if the men 
could be induced or forced to quit the dirty and delete- 
rious use of tobacco, and the brutalizing practice of drunk- 
enness, what a physical, intellectual and moral race would 
grow up to take the place of the present diseased and de- 
praved set of men and women ! 

I should be untrue to my record of latent and visible 
causes and effects to pass in silence the wide-spread con- 
tagion of drunkenness among the officers of the Confed- 
erate army; or to express the apparently well-grounded 
fact that the well-earned laurels of man}?- a gallant and 
otherwise promising Confederate, sooner or later faded 
from their brows under the blossoms of bestializing whis- 
key and brandy. 

The first effects of these stimulants are well calculated 
to mislead the good and true, as well as to accelerate the 
wicked tendencies of the naturally bad and vicious. They 
affect the spirits agreeably, and seem to add to the phys- 
ical,vitality and improve the digestion and general health; 
but apace they blunt the moral sensibilities, gradually be- 
numb the physical energies, becloud the intellect, over- 



FIRST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 239 

come the amiable qualities of nature's noblemen, and im- 
part an irascibility to their temper; make steady siege upon 
the strongest fortress of mankind — their pride of charac- 
ter. And when that is reduced and overcome, the helpless 
victims of the temporary pleasure of the habitual use of 
the beverage sink to the level of vagabonds. It was folly 
to trust that men whose habits were hurrying them 
down this inclined plane could successfully discipline and 
command troops. The officers thus addicted were really 
incapable of the discharge of their important duties, dis- 
gusting and demoralizing to their men, and to the coun- 
try, and a reproach to the cause. And it was a strong 
draft upon religious faith when we were required to be- 
lieve that a just God would be propitious to the country 
while these evils were tolerated by the ruling authorities. 
There were grounds to hope that this blighting disease 
that infested the moral atmosphere of the Confederate 
camp would soon reach its crisis when the axe would be 
laid to the root. Officers had to cease to be drunken or 
be displaced if we wished to have a satisfied and disci- 
plined army, or would hope to win battles. The low 
murmur of subalterns and privates gave an uncertain 
sound from the line of encampments, and if the evil was 
not arrested general demoralization must have ensued. 

There is an aspect in which war seems to be at radical 
variance with the teachings of Christianity. It is in refer- 
ance to the observance of the holy sabbath day. It 
would seem impracticable in many emergent cases to sus- 
pend operations on that day ; the march of armies, the 
running of railroad cars, and steamboats under the regu- 
lations of government for transporting mails, troops, and 
army supplies, and the operation of telegraph lines for 
the transmission of news, are necessary to a state of war, 



240 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

and it is not apparent to my mind how the war can be 
successfully carried on and these practices avoided. But 
the prevalent custom in the army of making the sabbath 
a day of review and inspection was certainly reprehensible 
and shocking to the pious portion of our countrymen, 
while there seemed to be no reason in a military point of 
view for that desecration of the Lord's day. The same 
authority which forbade the crimes of theft and murder,, 
also enjoined the observance of the Christian sabbath. 

Now if these crimes were constantly practised by the 
command of the government, it would be vastly more 
repulsive to the moral sensibilities for the reason that 
they violated the palpable laws of nature, and the mischiefs 
flowing from them were immediate and perceivable. 
But they no more certainly contravene the heavenly 
command, and we have no authority to support the belief 
that they would certainly provoke the Divine displeasure, 
than does the violation of the holy sabbath. Still there 
were numerous evidences in the history of the expiring 
year's operations to satisfy our learned clergy, and many 
of our spiritual minded people, that the Supreme Ruler 
of the world had signally interposed in our behalf. 

There was a general advance of prices of all articles of 
apparel and provisions, owing to the growing scarcity in 
all that we were accustomed to bring from other sections, 
or from foreign countries, and to the decrease in produc- 
tions and the waste of the army. The temptation to en- 
gage in speculation in these was more than the public 
virtue could resist, or public odium frown down. The 
number of those who obtained their consent to de- 
rive personal advantages from the woes and misfortunes 
of the country, and the wants of the self-sacrificing poor, 
seeined rather to be on the increase ; and the danger was 



FIRST YEAR IN THE FIELD. 241 

that the great number of heretofore respectable men who 
had thus stifled their consciences, and were prepared to 
barter their country for gain, would continue to increase 
until this deadly species of treason, not overt, should be- 
come itself, respectable. 

The public confidence seemed firm, that notwithstand- 
ing the temporary scarcity the resources were sufficient 
to produce the supply within reasonable time, in most ar- 
ticles of primary necessity. The limited number of cotton 
factories, and the great want of cotton cards in the hands 
of the people who had, in a great measure, suspended the 
domestic manufactures, gave grounds to fear that we 
should be closely pressed in obtaining a supply of cloth- 
ing. The subject of a supply of salt to meet the wants 
of this country during a long, continued blockade was one 
of the most serious that the public mind was called upon 
to digest during the war. A portion of the salines in Vir- 
ginia were already within the lines of the enemy's military 
operations, while those which were not, were liable to con- 
stant interruption. On the coast, all operations for the 
manufacture of salt were necessarily subject to be broken 
up at any time by the enemy's fleets. The reclaiming of 
the deposits of salt from the beds of smoke houses, where 
it had settled from the dripping of pork, had aided some 
in supplying this essential article ; while it was hoped that 
discoveries of salines might be made, and operations pro- 
jected at points where salt could be safely manufactured. 
Some was imported through the blockade and the supply 
on hand, by strict economy, was made to extend far be- 
yond the time to which it would hold out with the ordi- 
nary lavish mode of using it. It was evident, however, 
that our people who were determined upon the accom- 
plishment of independence, would live without salt, or 

16 



242 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

upon a very small quantity, rather than contemplate the 
idea of surrendering to the enemy. 

The question of subsistence for the families of poor 
men who were in the public service, and who were desti- 
tute of the necessaries of life, assumed a grave aspect. 
It was found that private contributions and individual 
charity, however promising upon the opening of the war, 
had proven to be an uncertain reliance, and that suffering 
for want of food and clothing would follow unless some 
certain provision was made for their support. It was 
conceded on all hands that they were entitled to a sup- 
port from the property holders of the country. The hus- 
bands, sons, fathers, or brothers who customarily sup- 
ported them, being now detained from them in the post 
of exposure and danger, or having died or become dis- 
abled in service, in a struggle for the protection of prop- 
erty, the sentiment was general that the holders of that 
property ought to see to it that the helpless ones did not 
want for the necessaries of life ; it was found also that pri- 
vate contributions, even if they could be relied on, operated 
very unequally upon the holders of property. There 
were some also who were naturally very liberal and patri- 
otic, and would from charitable impulses give bountifully, 
while others from natural stinginess or lukewarmness in 
the cause gave but very little, and others nothing at all. 

In view of this, and fully alive to the necessity of pro- 
viding a support for them, the Legislature of the State 
of Georgia, and perhaps of other States, empowered the 
county court of each county to impose a large tax upon 
the property of the citizens thereof to raise a fund for 
this purpose. The error of this system was found upon 
trial to be that the counties having the least property 
would generally have within their limits the most paupers. 



FIRST YEAE IN THE FIELD. 243 

Those very rich counties where there were but few fami- 
lies too poor to support themselves were almost exempt 
from the burden of supporting the poor ; while in the 
populous poor counties the burden on the few small hold- 
ers of property was either unsupportable, or the poor 
left unprovided for. 

Experience demonstrated the necessity of drawing the 
pauper fund from the public treasury of the State, so 
that property wherever located was reached, and the 
poor whose necessities had been brought upon them by 
the withdrawal of their reliance for a support to serve in 
the Confederate army, were partially supported. 

One portentous aspect of our affairs seemed to indicate 
a tendency to alienation between the rich and the poor of 
the people, and the troops of our army. The means of 
supplying the poor in many cases decreased, while the ap- 
plicants for bounty increased, and not unattended in many 
instances with a spirit of exaction which was not visible 
at the outset. In other cases the ardor of patriotism and 
the breadth of charity alike decreased under the growing 
prospects of realizing high prices from speculators and ex- 
tortioners for their bread and meat. Hence, their grow- 
ing apathy to the idea of lavishing upon the hungry poor 
around them, notwithstanding the promises made to the 
departing soldiers, far away from home, enduring hard- 
ships, privations, and exposure to danger. This evil in- 
creased with the prospective advance of high prices, and 
with every new levy of troops, which increased the num- 
ber of paupers in almost every neighborhood in the South. 
The reality of supporting other men's families for one, 
two, or three years, was quite different from that outburst 
of evanescent charity that flowed into the laps of the poor 
upon the breaking out ox hostilities. The reflex influence 



244 OPENING OF HOSTILITIES. 

of the discontents in the home circle upon the poor men 
in the army, after a few more months when they had be- 
come tired of the service, and sought pretexts to complain, 
was deleterious. 

We close this imperfect review of the year 1861, and 
await with anxiety the now undeveloped changes which 
the incoming year would make, with the remark that, 
surveying the whole field of operations, it appeared that 
the prospect of eventual success was high ; that the ob- 
stacles in the way were not insuperable ; that we had no 
real cause to despond, that our condition was every way 
as good as could have been expected -, and that, with the 
continuation of Divine favor, we must sooner or later be 
a disenthralled and independent people. It was in the 
power of our enemies to long harass and perplex us ; to 
lay waste our cities, destroy our fields and industrial re- 
sources, shut us out from communication with the world, 
crimson many a field with the best blood of our country, 
and literally clothe the South in mourning for her gallant 
dead ; but we did not believe it in their power ever to 
subjugate us j and such was the prevailing sentiment of 
our people at that time. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Defence of Georgia by State Forces. 

On the 6th of November, 1861, Governor Brown, on the 
assembling of the Legislature, in his general message, 
makes the following succinct statement on the subject 
of the 

DEFENCE OF THE STATE. 

" The Act of the last Legislature authorized the Governor to call out ten 
thousand volunteers, if necessary, for the defence of the State. 

*' Early in the spring I divided the State into four sections or brigades in- 
tending, if necessary, to raise one brigade of volunteers in each section, and 
appointed one major-general and two brigadier-generals with a view to the 
prompt organization of one division in case of emergency. The position of 
major-general was tendered to Gen. Henry R. Jackson, who has lately gained 
a very important victory over a greatly superior force of the enemy in north- 
western Virginia, who declined it in favor of Col. William H. T. Walker, 
late of the United States Army and a most gallant son of Georgia. I then, 
in accordance with the recommendation of General Jackson and tiie dictates 
of my own judgment, tendered the appointment to Colonel Walker, by whom 
it was accepted. The office of brigadier-general was tendered to and accepted 
by Col. Paul J. Semmes for the second brigade, and to Col. William Phillips 
for the fourth brigade. With a view to more speedy and active service 
under the Confederate government. General Walker and General Semmes 
resigned before they had organized their respective commands. About this 
time our relations with the government of the United States assumed so 
threatening an aspect that I ordered General Phillips to organize his brigade 
as rapidly as possible, and to throw tlie officers into a camp of instruction for 
training that they might be the better prepared to render effective those 
under their command. This camp of instruction was continued for about 
wo weeks and the officers sent home to hold their respective commands in 
readiness. This was the condition of our volunteer organization early in 
June when the United States troops crossed the Potomac and invaded the 
soil of Virginia. Not knowing how soon a similar invasion of our own soil 
might be made by a landing of troops upon our coast, I ordered General 
Phillips to call his whole brigade into a camp of instruction and hold them in 



246 DEFENCE OF GEOEGIA BY STATE FOECES. 

readiness for immediate action should emergencies require it. This order 
•was promptly obeyed by the energetic and efficient officer to whom it was 
given. General Phillips, assisted by Adjutant-General Wayne and Major 
Capers, the superintendent of the Georgia Military Institute, pressed for- 
ward the instruction and preparation of the troops with great activity and 
energy. The troops remained in camp from the 11th of June till the 2d of 
August. They were a noble, patriotic, chivalrous band of Georgians, and I 
hazard nothing in saying, military men being the judges, that no brigade in 
the Confederate service was composed of better material, or was better 
trained at that time for active service in the field. The season having so 
far advanced that it was not probable that our coast would be invaded before 
cold weather, I tendered the brigade to President Davis for Confederate 
service in Virginia. Tiie President refused to accept the tender of the 
brigade, but asked for the troops by regiments. Believing that a due respect 
for the rights of the State should have prompted the President to accept 
those troops under their State organization, and if any legal obstacle in the 
way of accepting a brigade existed that it should have been removed by the 
appointment of the general who had trained the men, and who was their 
unanimous choice, to continue to command them in active service, I at first 
refused to disband a, State organization, made in conformity to the statute, 
and tender the troops by regiments ; more especially as the President only 
demanded the two regiments which would have left the three battalions to 
be disbanded or maintained as battalions through the balance of the season 
by the State. Finally the president agreed to accept the battalions and 
regiments, and in view of the pressing necessity for troops in Virginia, I 
yielded the point, and accepted General Phillips's resignation, and permitted 
the troops to be mustered into the Confederate service by regiments and 
battalions. 

" About the time these troops left the secretary of war also ordered out of 
the State the regiment of Regulars under Colonel Williams, and the 2d 
regiment of volunteers commanded by Colonel Semmes, both excellent regi- 
ments, well drilled and armed. This left the coast almost entirely defence- 
less. By that time I had permitted nearly all the arras of the State to go 
into the Confederate service, and it has been a very difficult matter to get 
arms enough to supply the troops since ordered to the coast. 

" At the time Fort Pulaski was by an ordinance of our State Convention 
turned over to the Confederate government the number and size of the guns 
in the fort were very inadequate to its successful defence against a fleet with 
heavy guns, and, as the secretary of war made no provision for the proper 
supply of guns or ammunition I deemed it my duty to purchase, with funds 
from the State treasury, the necessary supply, which was done at a cost of 
$101,521.4.3. In this estimate is included the freights paid on the supply 
and a number of heavy guns sent to other parts of the coast together with 
work done on gun carriages, etc. During the months of August and Sep- 



DEFENCE OF GEOEGIA BY STATE FORCES. 247 

tember our climate was considered a sufficient protection of our coast against 
invasion ; but an attack was reasonably looked for so soon as the advanced 
stage of the season would render the health of an army on the coast secure. 
I had petitioned the secretary of war to send a larger force to our coast, prior 
to the order by which I called out General Phillips's brigade, and had offered 
to supply promptly any number of troops needed in obedience to a requisi- 
tion from the War Department, and had mentioned five thousand as the num- 
ber which I considered necessary. He replied, declining to order so many, 
and I felt it to be my duty to hold State troops in readiness to meet any con- 
tingency until the period when the climate would be a sufficient protection. 

" Early in September I visited the coast and inspected the fortifications 
and batteries which had been thrown up by Confederate authority. I was 
fully satisfied that the number of troops upon the coast in the Confederate 
service was entirely inadequate to its defence, and as no requisition was 
made upon me for any increase of the force, I felt it to be my duty to call 
out State troops and increase the force as soon as possible. It is true the 
State was not invaded, but the danger was considered so imminent as to 
admit of no further delay and I was of opinion that my action was justified 
by both the letter and spirit of the constitution of the Confederate States. 

" In the early part of September last I appointed Gen. George P. Harrison, 
of Chatham county, a brigadier-general, under the Act of the last session of 
the Legislature, and ordered him to organize a brigade of volunteers armed 
as far as we had the means with military weapons, and the balance with 
good country rifles and shot guns, and to throw them into camp of instruc- 
tion near the coast where they could readily be used when needed. General 
Harrison has pressed forward the organization with his characteristic prompt- 
ness and energy and now has a fine brigade under his command. I have 
also, within the last few days, appointed Maj. F. W. Capers a brigadier-general 
and ordered him to take command of the second brigade now about 
organized. 

"When I permitted nearly all the State's guns to go out of the State in 
the summer, I entertained the hope that such number of the troops with the 
guns as might be needed would be permitted to return to our coast in 
case of necessity during the winter. Considering the danger imminent, I 
lately requested the secretary of war to order back to our coast five regi- 
ments of armed Georgia troops. This request was at the time declined by 
the secretary, who agreed, however, to supply the Confederate general in 
command at Savannah with one thousand of the Enfield rifles lately 
imported. 

"As very little expenditure has been made by the Confederate govern- 
ment to place Georgia in a defensive condition, and as the number of Con- 
federate troops upon the coast is not sufficient to meet the necessities of the 
service, and as the enemy's fleet is now off our coast, I am of opinion that 
the State will be compelled in a very great degree to take her own defences 



248 DEFENCE OF GEOEGIA BY STATE FORCES. 

into her own hands, and I therefore recommend such additional legislation 
as the General Assembly may think necessary for that purpose together with 
such appropriations of money as may be required for a bold and vigorous 
defence of our beloved State against the aggressions of a wicked and power- 
ful foe. Should we have to continue our troops in the field, which I think 
quite,! probable, during the winter, an appropriation of less than f 3, 500,000 
will be insufficient to meet the exigencies of the service for the ensuing year. 

" It is true the sum asked for is large, but the emergency in which we are 
placed and the results which must follow our action are such, that we cannot 
for a moment stop to count the cost. The only question proper for discus- 
sion now is, how many men and how much money are necessary to protect 
the State and repel the invasion. Other States have voted larger sums than 
I have asked. I see by the message of Governor Harris, that the gallant 
State of Tennessee has appropriated and expended $5,000,000 as a military 
fund within the last six months. 

" How the amount of money above demanded is to be raised, is a question 
for the serious consideration of the General Assembly. The war tax innposed 
by the Confederate government, together with the expenses assumed by dif- 
ferent counties for supplies needed by their companies in the service, will 
greatly inci'ease the burdens of taxation. If we add this additional sum to 
that to be collected within the present year, the burden will be too onerous. 
On the other hand, we should not forget that the debt which we now incur, 
with the interest, has to be paid by us and our posterity. "While we cannot 
avoid some increase of the public debt of the State, I think it wise that we 
increase it as little as possible, and that we meet a large part of our neces- 
sary expenditures by taxation. 

" I therefore recommend the enactment of a law authorizing the collection, 
during the present fiscal year, of one million of dollars by taxation, for State 
purposes, and the sale of State bonds bearing such rate of interest as will 
command par in the market, to an amount necessary to raise the balance. 
If the interest is fixed at a high rate, the State should reserve the right to 
redeem the bonds at no very distant period. In the management of private 
aifairs, I have generally noticed that he who is largely indebted, and keeps 
his property and pays heavy interest rather than sell property enough to pay 
the debt and stop the interest, is seldom prosperous; so it is with a State. 
The revolution has happened in our day ; its burdens belong to the present 
generation, and we have no right, by a very large increase of our public debt, 
to transmit the greater portion of them to generations yet unborn." 

The Transfer of State Troops to the Confed- 
eracy. 

The subject of maintaining a separate military force, 
by the State, sufficient for the defence of her coast in 



DEFENCE OF GEOEGIA BY STATE FORCES. 249 

addition to the large drain upon the population by troops 
already in the Confederate service, having been much 
discussed by the public journals, the General Assembly 
took the following action on the 16th December, 1861 : — 

" Resolved, By the General Assembly of Georgia, that the Governor be, 
and he is hereby authorized and instructed to tender to the Confederate 
Government the volunteer forces called into service under the law of 1860, 
or which may hereafter be called into service for the State defence, in com- 
panies, battalions, regiments, brigades or divisions, as may be found to be 
acceptable to the war department of the Confederate States ; Provided, That 
the Confederate States will receive them for the term of their enlistment and 
for local defence in this State, under the act of Congress to provide for 
local defence and special service, approved August 21, 1861 ; And provided 
further, That, if the Confederate States shall not accept said troops, in that 
event the troops shall remain in service as State troops, under the terms of 
their enlistment ; And provided further, That such tender shall be made, so far 
as the troops now in the State are concerned, before the 15th day of January 
next, and before a greater sum than one million of dollars is raised or ex- 
pended as provided for in the 20th section of the general appropriation bill ; 
And provided further. That none of said troops shall be transferred to the 
Confederate service without their full consent, first fairly obtained, by com 
panics, if organized as independent companies, by battalions, if organized in 
independent battalions, or by regiments if organized in regiments. 

" Be it further Resolved, That we earnestly recommend the Confederate 
Government to receive said State forces, should they assent, with all their 
field and general officers, and if there be no law now authorizing such accept- 
ance we respectfully request our Senators and Representatives to urge the 
passage of a bill to efiect so desirable an object. 

" Assented to December 16, 1861." 

The following extract from the annual message of 
Governor Brown, the 6th of November, 1862, contains 
a full account of the transfer : — 

" In compliance with the resolution of the General Assembly passed at its 
last session, directing me to transfer the State troops to the Confederacy 
with the consent of the troops, I ordered the question of transfer to be 
submitted to a fair vote of each organized body of troops, and the majority 
against the transfer amounted almost to unanimity. Soon after the passage 
of the Conscription Act, however, which passed after the expiration of the 
term of enlistment of part of the men, but a short time before the end of 



250 DEFENCE OE GEOEGIA BY STATE EOECES. 

the term of much the larger portion of tbem, the Secretary of War informed 
me that all the State troops between 18 and 35 years of age must go into 
the Confederate service. At that time an attack upon the city of Savannah 
was daily expected, and for the purpose of avoiding conflict and collision 
with the Confederate authorities in the face of the enemy, I agreed to yield 
the point, and I immediately tendered the State army to Brigadier-General 
Lawton, who then commanded the Military District of Georgia, Major 
General Henry R. Jackson, who commanded the State troops, having retired 
from the command to prevent all embarrassment. General Lawton accepted 
the tender, and assumed the command of the troops. The claim made by the 
Secretary of War did not include those under 18 or over 35 years of age, 
but it was thought best to tender the whole together, as the detachment of 
those between 18 and 35 from each organization would have disorganized 
the entire force. 

" While referring to the subject, I feel it a duty which I owe to the gal- 
lant officers and brave men who composed the State army to say, that they 
were, at the time of the transfer, as thoroughly organized, trained and disci- 
plined, as probably any body of troops of equal number on the continent 
who had not been a much longer time in the field. They had performed 
without murmur, an almost incredible amount of labor in erecting fortifica- 
tions and field works necessary to the protection of the city, and had made 
their position so strong as to deter the enemy, with a force of vastly supe- 
rior numbers, from making an attack. While they regretted that an 
opportunity did not ofi'er to show their courage and efficiency upon the bat- 
tle-field, they stood, like a bulwark of stout hearts and strong arms, between 
the city and the enemy, and by their chivalrous bearing and energetic prep- 
aration, in connection with the smaller number of brave Confederate 
troops near, saved the city from attack and capture, without bloodshed and 
carnage. 

" It is but justice to Major-General Jackson, that it be remarked, that he 
had, with untiring energy and consummate ability, pressed forward the prep- 
aration of the defences and the training of the army, and that the people of 
Georgia owe much of gratitude to him for the safety of the city of Savannah 
and its present freedom from the tyrannical rule of the enemy. There is not, 
probably, an intelligent, impartial man in the State who does not regret that 
the services of this distinguished son of Georgia should not have been prop- 
erly appreciated by the Confederate authorities, and that he should not, after 
the Georgia army was transferred, have been invited by the President to a 
command equal to his well known ability and merit. This was requested 
by the Executive of this State, which request was presented to the President 
by her entire delegation in Congress. 

" It is also due Brigadier-Generals George P. Harrison, F. W. Capers, and 
W. H. T. Walker, that their names be honorably mentioned for enlightened 
generalship and efficiency as commaaders of their respective brigades. The 



EAISING EEVENUE BY THE STATE. 251 

Executive of the State, appreciating the merits of these officers, asked for 
positions for them as commanders in the armies of the Confederacy, but 
neither of them, so far as I know, has been tendered any command. If this 
might be excused as to Generals Harrison and Capers, on the ground that 
they were not graduates of West Point and old army officers, though one of 
them has a thorough military education, and the other is known to be a most 
valuable, energetic military man, having the confidence of the whole people 
of the State, this excuse does not apply in the case of General Walker, who is 
a son of Georgia, a graduate of West Point and an old soldier, who has shed 
his blood in his country's service on many a battle field. His ability and 
gallantry are acknowledged by all who admire cool courage and high-toned 
chivalry. But no one of the Georgia generals who had commanded her 
State army has since been invited to a position, and even this gallant old sol- 
dier is permitted to remain in retirement, while thousands of Georgia troops 
who entered the service of the Confederacy under requisitions upon the 
State, and whose right, under the Constitution, to be commanded by gener- 
als appointed by the State is too clear to admit of doubt, are thrown under 
the command of generals appointed from other States, many of whom have 
had neither the experience in service, nor the distinction which General Walker 
has, while confronting the enemies of his country, purchased with blood upon 
the battle field." 

Raising Revenue by the State. 

In the annual message of November 6, 1861, the Gov- 
ernor made the following recommendation as to the 
methods of raising revenue : 

SALE OF STATE BONDS. 

I 

" The Act of the last General Assembly of the State which appropriated 
one million of dollars as a military fund for the year 1861, made provision 
for raising the money by the sale of six per cent. State bonds. At the time 
of the passage of the Act our six per cent, bonds were above par in the 
market and were eagerly sought after by capitalists. Soon after the dissolu- 
tion of the United States Government, bonds and stocks of all kinds were 
greatly depreciated in the market and it became impossible to raise money 
at par on any securities bearing only six per cent, interest. The Govern- 
ment of the Confederate States fixed the rate of interest on its bonds at 
eight per cent, and persons having money to invest preferred these bonds to 
the six per cent, bonds of any State. I was consequently unable to raise 
money on the bonds bearing the rate of interest fixed by the statute without 
putting them upon the market at a considerable discount. After some 
negotiation most of the banks of this State agreed, each in proportion to 



252 KAISING EEVENUE BY THE STATE. 

the amount of its capital stock, to advance to tbe Treasury at seven per cent, 
such sum as might be necessary to conduct our military operations. This 
advance was made upon a statement placed upon the Executive Minutes 
and a copy forwarded to each, by which I agreed to recommend the Legis- 
lature when assembled to authorize the issue of seven per cent, bonds to 
each for the sum advanced, payable at the end of twenty years, the interest 
to be paid semi-annually and the State to reserve to herself the right, at her 
option, to redeem the bonds by paying to the holders the principal and inter- 
est due at the end of five years. Upon this agreement, a copy of which is 
herewith transmitted together with a statement of the sum advanced by 
each bank, the wants of the Treasury were relieved and such sums have been 
advanced from time to time as the necessities of the State required. It is 
proper that I mention in this connectipn that the Central Railroad and 
Banking Company through its able and patriotic president, the Hon. R. R. 
Cuyler, tendered to the State one hundred thousand dollars and took six per 
cent, bonds in payment before any other bank had acted and at a time 
when money could not be commanded in the market at that rate. This 
conduct was alike liberal and patriotic and was followed by agreement on 
the part of several other banks, each to take ten per cent, upon its capital 
stock, to which the six per cent, bonds were issued accordingly. I do not 
think it right that these last named banks should be permitted to sustain 
loss on account of their liberality, and I therefore recommend that the six 
per cent, bonds issued to each bank in this State on account of these sums 
advanced, be taken up, 9,nd that seven per cent, bonds be substituted in their 
place, and also that seven per cent, bonds be issued to all the other banks 
for the sums advanced by them in accordance with the .agreement upon 
which they made their respective advances. This would place all the banks 
upon an equality and do justice to each of them. The part of the loan which 
has been taken amounts to $867,500. Of this sura $25,000 of the six per cent, 
bonds were issued to Sharps Manufacturing Company of Connecticut, in 
part pay for carbines purchased from the company, leaving the sum of 
$842,500 taken by the banks of this State upon which only $305,000 of bonds 
have issued, the balance having been advanced without the issue of bonds 
upon the contract above mentioned. While nearly the whole amount of the 
military appropriation had been expended prior to the end of the fiscal year, 
the receipts from the State Road and from other sources have been such as 
to meet the ordinary expenses of the government as well as the extraordinary 
appropriations of the last Legislature ; also to pay part of the drafts upon 
the military fund and to leave in the Treasury at the end of the fiscal year a 
net balance of $324,099.86. As this sum in the treasury was not appropri- 
ated for military purposes, but is mostly appropriated for other purposes and 
undrawn, I had no right under the constitution to draw upon it, and as the 
military fund was lately exhausted and the perilous condition of the State 
required large expenditures and prompt action for the defence of the coast, 



EAISING EEVENUE BY THE STATE. 253 

it became necessary for me to negotiate a further loan with the banks of 
Savannah to meet the emergency till an appropriation could be made. This 
I thought better than to convene the Legislature in extra session a very 
short time previous to the regular session. Under this arrangement I have 
received from the banks of Savannah through G. B. Lamar, Esq., whose 
services have been of great value to the State both in New York prior to the 
secession of Georgia from the. old Union, and in Savannah since that time, 
such sums as the service required, for the repayment of which it will be nec- 
essary to provide out of the military fund to be appropriated at the present 
session. The amount advanced is not yet large, but it will become nec- 
essary to increase it daily till an appropriation is made to meet the heavy 
expenditures now being incurred to sustain our troops in the iield. I 
earnestly solicit for this subject the early attention of the General Assembly. 

TREASURY NOTES. 

" It is possible the State might find it difficult to raise by the sale of bonds, 
the portion of the money above recommended to be raised in that way for 
the ensuing year. Should it be found that such is the case, I recommend 
that the Treasurer of this State be authorized to issue, under the order of 
the Governor, Treasury notes, similar to those issued by the Treasury Depart- 
ment of the Confederate States ; and that said notes be made receivable in 
the payment of taxes, or any other debt due the State, or the State Road. 

" And for the purpose of giving these notes credit as currency, let provi- 
sion be made by law, that any person presenting at the Treasury five hun- 
dred, or one thousand dollars of them, shall be entitled to have and receive 
for said notes a bond of the State of Georgia, for the same amount, bearing 
eight per cent, interest, payable semi-annually, the principal to be paid at the 
end of ten years ; with the like privilege for each additional amount of five 
hundred or one thousand dollars presented. 

" This would place the notes upon a basis of security that the most cautious 
could not suspect, and would doubtless enable the State to raise such sums 
as her necessities may require. With this security, it is believed that our 
banks could not fail to receive the notes on deposit, and that they would be 
received in payment of debts, and answer all the purposes of currency. As 
the faith of the State would be pledged for their redemption, no higher se- 
curity would be asked by her citizens." 

In the annual message of November 6, 1862, the Gov- 
ernor makes the followino; statement in reo:ard to those 
notes : — 

" The Appropriation Bill passed at your last session made it my duty, in 
case there should not, at any time, be money in the Treasury to meet auy ap- 



254 EAISIKG EEVENUE BY THE STATE. 

propriation, to raise it by the sale of State bonds, or by issuing Treasury notes, 
as I might think best. In each case where I had the discretion, I did not 
hesitate to decide to issue Treasury notes, bearing no interest, in place of 
bonds bearing interest; and I have found these notes not only current, but 
in great demand as an investment. The whole amount of Treasury notes is- 
sued is 12,320,0 0. 

" The notes are payable in specie or eight per cent, bonds, six months after 
a treaty of peace, or when the banks of Augusta and Savannah resume spe- 
cie payments if before that time. These notes have generally been laid away 
as a safe investment by banks and others into whose hands they have fallen; 
and it is a rare occurrence to see one in circulation. Should it become nec- 
essary, as it probably will, to extend the issue to meet part of the liabilities 
of the Treasury for the present fiscal year, I respectfully recommend that 
no alteration be made in the form of thje notes, as tliere is on hand a very 
considerable amount of the printed bills that can soon be issued without ex- 
pense, which would be useless in case of auy change in the present form, and 
it would cost great delay and expense to procure paper and have others pre- 
pared. 

" The only objection insisted upon against the issue of Treasury notes, in 
place of the sale of bonds to meet the demands on the Treasury, is, that the 
issue of a large amount of notes to be circulated as currency, depreciates the 
value of paper currency in the market. This is unquestionably true, as evi- 
denced by the present state of our currency. But it is equally true that 
enough of paper currency must be issued, in the present condition of the 
country, to meet the demand. Suppose the State needs a million of dollars, 
and puts her bonds in the market to raise it, and receives paper currency in 
payment for them, it is quite evident that the Confederacy, or the banks, 
must issue a million to meet this demand, in addition to the issue they would 
otherwise make for other purposes; and the same depreciation growing out 
of a redundancy of paper currency follows, which would happen, were the 
State to issue a million of dollars in her own notes, and thus meet her own 
demand. The question is not one of the depreciation of the currency by over 
issues of paper, as the number of dollars in paper currency to be placed upon 
the market is the same in either case, but it is simply a question of interest. 
Shall the State use her own notes, which pass readily as currency without in- 
terest, and are genei'ally laid away as an investment, or shall she pay interest 
to a corporation for the privilege of using and circulating its notes, founded 
upon a less secure basis than her own? In my opinion there is no room for 
hesitation in making the decision in favor of Treasury notes. The amount 
of interest saved to the Treasury in one year at seven per cent, upon the is- 
sue of notes already made in place of bonds, is $162,400. To this might have 
been added the further sum of $170,870, had I been authorized by the stat- 
ute to issue and use Treasury notes in place of bonds to meet the Confed- 
erate war tax. This statute was a special one for a special purpose, however, 



RAISING EEVEXUE BY THE STATE. 255 

and confined me to the use of bonds without giving me discretion to issue 
Treasury notes." 

In the annual message of November 6, 1862, the Gov- 
ernor makes the following statement as to the disburse- 
ment of the five million appropriation : 

» 

" Of the five millions of dollars, appropriated at your last session for mili- 
tary purposes, only $2,539 290.25 have been drawn from the Treasury during 
the fiscal year. Of this sum $350,000 has been returned by Lieut.-Col. Jared 
I. Whitaker, Commissary- General, and $50,000 by Lieut.-Col. Ira R. Foster, 
Quartermaster-General, and $58,286 by Major L. H. Mcintosh, Chief of Ord- 
nance, for stores in their respective departments, sold to officers under the 
army regulations, and to the Confederacy after the State troops were trans- 
ferred. The amount of the appropriation which has been used is, therefore, 
$2,081,004.25. Of this sum $100,000 was expended in payment for arms 
purchased in England prior to your last session ; and $50,000 for iron to 
be used in fortifications and upon the gunboat called the ' State of Georgia.' 
This boat was built under the supervision of Major-General Jackson while 
in command, and completed after he retired. The balance of the money for 
its construction was contributed by the cities of Savannah, Augusta, and 
other corporations, by soldiers, and chiefly by the ladies of this State, who 
have shown since the commencement of our struggle, on all proper occasions, 
a liberality and patriotism worthy the most distinguished matrons of the 
Revolution of 1776. For support, equipment, pay and transportation of 
two companies now in service as bridge guards on the State Road, $10,000. 
This leaves $1,921,000.85, which, together with a special appropriation of 
$100,000, was expended upon the Georgia army, and for other contingent 
military purposes. It will be seen, however, by reference to the reports of 
the Quartermaster-General and the Chief of Ordnance, that very consider- 
able sums were expended for the purchase of horses, artillery, etc., which 
were transferred to the Confederacy with the Georgia army, for which no 
payment has been made to the State. These sums, with contingent military 
expenditures, when deducted from the above mentioned sums will leave the 
whole cost of the Georgia army of nearly 8,000 men, for nearly six months, 
including pay, clothing, subsistence, transportation, and every other expense, 
a little short of $2,000,000." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Government of Georgia in Relation to the "War. 

This State is necessarily conspicuous in any full and 
fair narrative of the achievements of Southern arms during 
the war with the United States ; and while not feeling sum- 
moned by any charges or implications against the gal- 
lantry and heroism of her officers and soldiers, and not 
desiring to give them undue or unjust prominence among 
the forces so nobly representing other States of the Con- 
federacy, where all achieved so much to perpetuate their 
fame, ample justice is attempted in other parts of our 
work to the noble sons of Georgia. It is perhaps impos- 
sible to set forth the number of troops the State had in 
the service. In the belief of its truth I have stated that 
she sent a larger number in proportion to white popula- 
tion than any State north or south. This fact, if true, is 
referred to, not to cast the remotest reflection upon any 
Confederate State. For they all in view of the circum- 
stances surrounding them performed their duty nobly 
in furnishing troops, and the conduct of their citizen sol- 
diers. But it is a part of the means at command of 
repelling charges that have been made against the admin- 
istration of the State, to the effect that it hindered and 
impeded the Confederate government in the prosecution 
of the war. Such a charge or implication aimed at her 
Governor, and embracing her people who at the ballot 
box, at the home precincts, and at the voting places in 



GEOEGIA IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 257 

the army sustained him, calls for special notice, and 
such is the purpose of this chapter. 

As the sequel will disclose, there was conflict of judg- 
ment between Governor Brown and President Davis, as 
to the method of raising forces in the State for the Confed- 
erate service ; some of the troops were organized, the 
officers commissioned, and the regiments turned over by 
the State to the Confederacy. The government author- 
ized men to raise regiments, legions, battalions, etc. As- 
piring men organized companies of infantry, artiller}^, 
cavalry, and with other denominations, and were received 
into the Confederate service. By acts of the Confederate 
Congress the President received many organizations, and 
by the enrolling and conscript officers, large numbers of 
troops who were distributed among the commands of 
this and other States. Some of the small commands were 
organized with troops from other States. 

Even during the war the matter of Georgia troops was 
of such uncertainty of identification, as to their num- 
ber and organizations, that the Governor, acting under the 
authority of the Legislature, detailed the writer of this 
treatise to make a roll of Georgia troops in the Confeder- 
ate service. On arriving at Richmond, the demands on 
the war department in June, 18G3, were such, in conse- 
quence of army movements at that time, as to render the 
mission impracticable. -I was recalled and, disasters fol- 
lowing rapidly, the matter was delayed and, on account of 
the downfall of the Confederacy, was never undertaken 
afterwards. 

The regiments of the State organized before and after 
the war began, under the State authority, and turned over 
to the Confederacy, and those raised in the State by Con- 
federate authority, the numerous battalions and companies 

17 



258 GOVEENMENT OF GEORGIA 

aggregated and conscripts raised in the State and sent to 
commands already in the field, and the troops employed in 
the State service under the command of the Governor, and 
used in the common defence, amounted to troops enough 
for about one hundred average regiments. The State had 
only a little upwards of 100,000 voters at a full election, and 
a population of 583,000 whites, and 462,000 blacks at the 
opening of the war. It is a truth to be noted that the 
regiments raised and turned over by the Governor, and 
those organized by Confederate authority in the State, 
were generally full in numbers, and of the material that 
compared favorably with the troops of other States. And 
still more noteworthy is the fact which is beyond dispute, 
that Georgia remained nearly to the last within Confed- 
erate lines, and her soldiers did not in large numbers 
retire to their homes, and that in the main her regiments 
were kept fuller and better recruited than those from 
some of the other States. It would be untrue to assume 
that there were not Georgia stragglers and deserters, as 
there were from all the States, in large numbers toward 
the close of the war, when the morale of the army was 
affected by the conquests and advances of the Union forces, 
the defeats and disasters of ours, and the generally failing 
fortunes of the Confederacy and loss of the grounds of 
hope for final success, and the alienation of the feelings 
of the people by the course of the Confederate Govern- 
ment and her authorities, civil and military. But it is 
true, in fact, that a larger proportion of her troops re- 
mained at the front, and in line, than from several other 
States, if not all of them. 

It is not true, in fact, that the civil administration of 
this State obstructed the Confederacy or hindered its 
plans and enterprises, or its success, by any lack or with- 



IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 259 

holding of her quota of the means of war, either in sol- 
diers, quartermaster and commissariat stores, stock, pro- 
visions, clothing, medical aid, fighting men, or ability in 
military officers, or in the civil departments of the Con- 
federate government. 

If it were, on the other hand, asserted that the ruling 
powers of the Confederacy, in the civil department, did 
not obstruct, hinder, delay, and finally defeat the grand 
purposes of the revolution, and necessitate the downfall 
of the Confederacy, in part, by the measures and policy 
wherein President Davis differed in judgment from Gov- 
ernor Brown, and about which they had controversy dur- 
ing the war, it would be to ask observing and thinking 
people to overlook and disregard the direct relation be- 
tween cause and effect — the alienation of the people in 
part from the government ; the abatement of their ardor 
in the cause of Southern independence by the manifest 
discriminations and injustice of the Confederate govern- 
ment, and its apparent disregard of the principles of con- 
stitutional law, and of equality of rights — for the love of 
which they had gone into the revolution. 

On the other hand, with the advantages of a full retro- 
spect, and a better knowledge of our own and the resources 
of the government at war with us, and the feelings and 
influences of foreign nations, it would be speculative to 
argue that even if the views and policy of Governor Brown 
had been adopted and carried out by Mr. Davis, we should 
have achieved independence — as many of the most dis- 
cerning people believe. Hence, we address ourself to the 
task of faithfully and fairly presenting the facts and truths 
of the matter between them. 

President Davis and Governor Brown had been lifelong 
Jeffersonian Democrats, and therefore State rights men. 



260 GOVEKNMENT OF GEOEGIA 

They had been, in all the controversies between national 
and local parties, growing out of the subject of slavery, 
ardent pro-slavery and southern rights Democrats ; and 
both favored the measures and policy on the part of their 
respective parties and States which led to withdrawal, 
and the organization of the Confederate government, and 
which invited or provoked the war, as the Federals under- 
stood the question ; and both carried all their talents, 
moral courage, energy and patriotism into the contest. 
After the steps had been taken, and war had resulted, 
both saw and comprehended its magnitude, its destructive 
power, and the dangers to which the South was exposed ; 
and both realized that their own, and the fortunes and 
happiness of their people, depended upon the success of 
the revolution. One was President of the Confederate 
States ; the other. Governor of Georgia — a very important 
member of the new union, in geographical position, re- 
sources in men and money, and in the morale of the gov- 
ernment resulting from the vast influence of her public 
men over the people of the South. They were men of 
strong mind — self-confident and self-reliant, men of strong 
and decided convictions, and settled opinions after inves- 
tigation ; and both were executive in talents, and decidedly 
so in disposition ; with this difference between Brown and 
Davis, and between him and all the public men of the 
South — his mind acted with more rapidity and precision, 
and he never grew tired or fagged ; and while he never 
lacked for expedients, and his mind was ever fruitful of 
plans, he never adhered to or followed them after their 
failure was manifest ; but like Davis, until convinced of 
mistake or error, he adhered firmly to his opinions. They 
are alike endowed with firmness by nature, which has been 
largely cultivated in practice. 



IN EELA.TION TO THE WAR. 261 

They differed in opinion, and therefore in practice, as 
to the matters publicly controverted between them; and 
co-operated wherein they agreed, both having the same 
general purpose and aim — the political independence of 
the Southern States, and the establishment of the new Con- 
federacy. It cannot be shown that in any matter touch- 
ing the war, that either offered opposition to the other, 
except in the vital and important matters wherein they 
differed in judgment; or, on the part of Governor Brown, 
that he ever refused or neglected to co-operate with the 
President, heartily ; and aid in every way in his power, in 
any and all matters wherein they agreed ; on the contrary, 
he was in the constant habit, in public and private, to 
friends and foes of the President, of vindicating and de- 
fending his policy and action, wherein he agreed with 
him. 

The controversy was based on differences of opinion on 
important principles, and on the part of Governor Brown 
was made entirely public through the press of the South. 
He stood on the correctness of his judgment; acted upon 
the conclusions then drawn, as did the President ; and each 
must abide the positions then chosen, in the calm judg- 
ment of those who come after them. 

The matters do not rest in vague human memory, but 
in records that time has not changed. 

Before presenting these controversies, we recur to the 
action of Governor Brown at home, and of the State un- 
der his lead and advice. > 

As seen heretofore, there was conflict between the Gov- 
ernor and the State Legislature on numerous matters of 
State policy relating to the civil administration, from the 
time he came into office up to the time when war became 
imminent. Then the spirit of the Governor was the 



262 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

spirit of the great people who leaped into solid column 
under his lead, and sustained his action and seconded his 
plans, in full confidence of his ability and wisdom as well 
as patriotic devotion to their rights and happiness. 

Under his advice, the General Assembly as before stated, 
upon the call of a State convention and before the State 
seceded, appropriated ^1,000,000, and placed the same at 
his disposal as a military fund ; and when that body called 
a convention to be elected by the people to determine 
what should be the course of the State, in view of the 
triumph of the Republican party in the election of Mr. 
Lincoln, the public confidence in Brown was so strong and 
general that his opinions had, perhaps, more potency over 
the Southern mind than any of our leaders. Men of the 
Legislature, not before in sympathy with the Governor, 
united with his ardent admirers and friends in calling out 
his opinions of the situation, and his counsel and advice to 
the people. 

His letter in response, written with great zeal as well 
as masterly ability, was extensively published throughout 
the South, and exercised a very powerful influence on the 
people of all the slaveholding States. 

Li the session of November, 1861, when the war had 
progressed a few months, under his recommendation 
$100,000 were placed at his disposal for State troops, and 
$5,000,000 appropriated as a military fund for the public 
defence. 

In reply to all possible charges or implications of a want 
of co-operation and support on the part of Georgia, I make 
the following extract from the annual message of Gov- 
ernor Brown, of 6th November, 1861; showing his ex- 
traordinary promptness and energy in the first half-year 
of the war : — 



IN EELATION TO THE WAR. 263 

" The Secretary of "War has frequently made requisition upon me as the 
Governor of this State for troops ; these I promptly furnished. Thirty 
regiments and three battalions of State troops have gone into the service of 
the Confederacy. Of this number twenty-one regiments and three battalions 
have been armed, accoutred, and equipped by the State. We now have ac- 
cepted and nearly all in the field of Slate troops, not in Confederate service, 
seven regiments and three battalions, which, with the help of the country 
arms in use, are being fully armed, equipped, and accoutred by the State. 
We also have in service from Georgia ten regiments, which have been ac- 
cepted by the President independent of State authority, making thirty-seven 
regiments and six battalions of State troops, and ten regiments of independ- 
ent or Confederate troops. Counting two battalions as a regiment, Geor- 
gia has therefore in service fifty regiments, forty of State troops and ten 
independent. Including a few country arms, she has armed, accoutred, and 
equi23ped thirty of these regiments." 

And, as will appear, requisitions made after that time 
were promptly responded to, and more than filled. 

Under his recommendation the Legislature assumed the 
payment of Georgia's part of the Confederate war tax, 
and provided for raising and paying the same by the 
State, thus keeping the vexatious and demoralizing tax 
gatherer of the Confederacy from the doors of the people 
then fully united and intent on the public defence. To 
meet and remedy a most fearful evil in the rear of the 
armies, acting under his advice the Legislature took the 
lead of all the States by making large appropriations for 
the relief and support of indigent families of Georgia 
soldiers in the field ; and for the manufacture of salt 
for the people, then apparently about to suffer generally 
for its want, on account of Federal blockade ; and for the 
aid and relief of our soldiers in the hospitals of the armies ; 
and for the manufacture and distribution of cotton cards 
among the women of the State to enable them to supply 
clothing at home, and for their sons, husbands, and broth- 
ers in the service ; for the manufacture of shoes for the 
barefooted troops, and the supply of blankets and medi- 



264 GOVEENMENT OF GEOEGIA 

cine, and other necessaries to sustain them in the struggle ; 
and for the manufacture of arms and ammunition, then a 
matter of the most critical and pressing importance to the 
Confederacy. We had fighting men in redundancy com- 
pared with the lack of arms. 

Brown was wiser and more sagacious, and therefore 
a stronger stay and support to the Confederacy than the 
other Southern governors, in adopting the policy of reserv- 
ing the power and control of the State government, and 
the means of preserving order and executing the laws of 
the State, as well as other public emergencies that might 
arise requiring prompt action to repel invasion from the 
State. The Legislature, responding to his advice and rec- 
ommendations, placed State troops and arms at his dis- 
posal and the militia not engaged in Confederate service, 
which he organized in addition to the regiments and battal- 
ions of State troops in active duty under his command, 
and upon the pay of the State. 

By this policy he was enabled to keep up the morale of 
the State, preserve the respect and confidence of the peo- 
ple at home and her soldiers in the field, to maintain the 
control of the white over the black race, and keep the 
latter in the fields to produce provision-supplies in lieu 
of the white men who were bearing arms. He was thus 
able to exercise the power and influence necessary to 
meet and promptly respond to every requisition on this 
State for the Confederate service in addition to the men 
in arms in State service, aiding in the common cause and 
enterprise of repelling the enemy and guarding the ap- 
proaches to our common country. 

While he protested against the conscript acts and pol- 
icy, he did not oppose the enrolment of private soldiers 
of the militia which did not break up its organization ; 



IN EELATION TO THE WAE. 265 

but refused to allow the officers enrolled and ordered 
away ; refused to allow the State organization to be 
broken up by conscripting her civil officers, as was done 
in other States. He refused to yield the power of the 
State of which he was Executive, for enforcing peace and 
tranquillity at home, and for responding to the calls of the 
Confederacy, lawfully made upon her ; and for this he was 
censured — censured for a policy which, firmly as well as 
wisely adhered to, rendered this State more efficient to 
the last in upholding the Confederacy. In his first annual 
message, after hostilities began, and when the issue of 
battle had been accepted on both sides and was fiercely 
maintained by Federals and Confederates, he concluded 
his elaborate review of the situation as follows :— 

" From the foregoing reflections', it naturally follows, that our whole social 
system is one of perfect homogeneity of interest, where every class of society 
is interested in sustainiag the interest of every other class. We liave all the 
harmonious elements necessary to the perpetuity of that republican and re- 
ligious liberty bequeathed to us by our fathers ; with none of the distracting 
and conflicting elements which must destroy both in the Northern States, and 
which have already precipitated the country into a bloody revolution, and at- 
tempted to huii to the ground the fairest structure ever dedicated to liberty 
on the face of the globe. To sustain this priceless heritage is the highest 
earthly duty of the Christian and the patriot. Ruthless and bloody hands 
have been laid upon it. To wrest it from them may cost hundreds of millions 
of treasure, and many thousands of the most invaluable lives of the South. 
But he who would stop to count the cost, would do well to ask himself. What 
is my property worth when I am a slave ? or. What is my life worth, if by 
saving it, I must transmit a heritage of bondage to my children? If we are 
conquered, our property is confiscated, and we and our children are slaves to 
Northern avarice and Northern insolence. Sooner than submit to this, I 
would cheerfully expend in the cause the last dollar I could raise, and would 
fervently pray, like Samson of old, that God would give me strength to lay 
hold upon the pillars of the edifice, and would enable me while bending with 
its weight, to die a glorious death beneath the ci'umbling ruins of that Tem- 
ple of Southern freedom which has so long attracted the world by the splen- 
dor of its magnificence." 



266 GOVEENMENT OF GEOEGIA 

And such was the ring of metal from his pen and 
tongue in public and private, to the close of the struggle. 
It abounds in all his messages and State papers, and 
is reflected in all his official action through the entire 
war. 

I have said his mind never tired, and his energies never 
fagged ; it is literally true that he was a man of unre- 
mitting toil, day and night, barely taking time for refresh- 
ment and sleep. And nothing in *his power or in the 
range of his public duties was allowed to be neglected or 
delayed. 

He pressed upon the Legislature at every meeting the 
claims of the Confederacy ; and constantly on the Confed- 
erate authorities, high and low, the claims of Georgia and 
the rights of her soldiers and people. 

It is fresh in the memory of the writer, impressed there 
by persistent and unremitting toil in his department, that 
no claim, or appeal, or request to him, was allowed to be 
overlooked or neglected. The sick and wounded in the 
distant hospitals, the illiterate and poor in the remotest 
parts of the State, and often of other States, sent their 
doleful complaints by thousands. They all had to be read 
and promptly and satisfactorily answered, as well as all 
letters from officials and influential people. He performed 
immense quantities of the reading and the labor of writ- 
ing — in the midst of which I came then to the conclusion, 
which must have been erroneous, that he had the faculty 
of giving minute and comprehensive attention to two 
subjects precisely at the same moment of time. It arose 
from having frequently applied to him at his table with 
letters on new subjects — read them and asked for instruc- 
tions when he was engaged in reading letters or actually 
writing — and receiving immediate directions, showing 



IN EELATION TO THE WAR. 267 

that he had minutely noticed and comprehended every 
point in what had been read to him. 

The people and the soldiers, and especially their fam- . 
ilies at home, loved and almost worshipped " Joe Brown," ' 
as he was called, while the Confederate authorities clam- 
ored for the supreme control, and the emasculation of the 
power and influence by which he was enabled to render 
them the greatest and most valuable aid and support. 

And while he differed in judgment from President 
Davis and his Cabinet and boldly made known his opin- 
ions, he never relaxed his energies, or abated his zeal, i 
or changed his purposes of political independence for the [ 
Confederacy, and never showed the white feather or the- 
slightest signs of yielding to the common foe as long as 
the Confederate Government had an army or civil organ- 
ization or a purpose and aim to protract the struggle. 

And when the contest was ended and the revolution 
had proved to be a stupendous failure, he exercised, as we 
shall see in the sequel, the same bold and fearless mind 
and judgment in advance of his own people, indicating 
the wisest and best course for a conquered people. But 
it was by far easier to lead a patriotic and exasperated 
people into war and guide their counsels amid its waste 
and destruction than it proved to be to calm the passions 
of a depleted, impoverished, subjugated, insulted, and op- 
pressed constituency who had passed under the yoke and 
for whom he no longer had the power to implead or en- 
force respect and protection. 

We recur to the matters of controversy between the 
Confederate President and the Governor of Georgia. 

The public policy of the President and Cabinet, and of 
the Congress, is set forth in the following extract from 
the annual message of Governor Brown, in which his ob- 



268 GOVEENMENT OE GEOEGIA 

jections, and the reasons therefor, are stated in the matter 
of raising and organizing troops for the Confederate 
armies : — 

" The Constitution formed by the Convention, and since adopted by each 
of the eleven Confederate States, is the old Constitution of the United 
States amended and improved in such particulars as the experience of three 
quarters of a century had shown to be necessary. Under this Constitution 
the new government of the Confederate States is now in successful operation 
and is maintaining itself with great ability both in the Cabinet and in the 
field. The action of our Congress has been generally characterized by pru- 
dence, wisdom and forethought. While I take much pleasure in making 
this statement and in yielding to the new government my hearty and cordial 
support, the candor, which I would exercise towards a friend, compels 
me to say, that in my judgment, two important acts passed by our Congress 
are hard to reconcile with the plain letter and spirit of the Constitution. 

" The 16th item of the 8th section of the 1st article of the Constitution of 
the Confederate States is in these words : ' Congress shall have power ' ' to 
provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for govern- 
.ing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Confederate 
States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers and 
the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by 
Congress.' The first section of the act of the Congress of the Confederate 
States, approved May 8, 1861, authorizes the President to accept the services 
of volunteers who may offer their services without regard to the place of 
enlistment. The second section of the act is in these words : — 

" ' That the volunteers so offering their services may be accepted by the 
President in companies to be organized by him into squadrons, battalions, or 
regiments. The President shall appoint all field and staff officers, but the 
company officers shall be elected by the men composing the company ; and 
if accepted, the officers so elected shall be commissioned by the President.' 

" The first section of the act approved May 11, 1861, is in these words: — 

" ' That the President be authorized to receive into service such companies, 
battalions, or regiments, either mounted or on foot, as may tender themselves 
and he may require, without the delay of a formal call upon the respective States, 
to serve for such term as he may prescribe.' 

" And part of the third section of said act is in these words : — 

" ' The President shall be authorized to commission all officers entitled to com- 
missions of such volunteer forces as may be received under the provisions of 
this act.' 

" The language of our Constitution is the same that is used in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and it is believed that the term militia, as there 
used when applied to troops, was always understood to be in contradistinc- 



IN EELATION TO THE WAE. 269 

tion to the term regular. The Constitution gives to Congress the power to 
' raise and support armies.' Under this authority our regular army is en- 
listed and its officers are appointed by the government under whose authority 
it is raised. In this case there is no restraint upon the power of Congress, 
and it may therefore confer upon the President the power to appoint all the 
officers. In the case of the militia, which term includes volunteers and 
other military forces not embraced in the regular army , the same unrestrained 
power is not granted. While the States have delegated to Congress the 
power of organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and of governing 
such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Confederacy, they 
have expressly reserved to themselves the appointment of the officers, and have 
therefore expressly denied to Congress the right to confer that power on the 
President or any other person. Notwithstanding the express reservation bj'^the 
States of this power, the acts above referred to, authorize the President to 
accept the volunteer militia of the States independently of State authority 
and to commission every officer of a regiment from a third lieutenant to a 
colonel. This act, by vesting in the President the power of appointing the 
officers of the militia, which power the States have carefully and expressly 
reserved to themselves, enables him to control, independent of State author- 
ity the whole consolidated military force of the Confederacy, including the 
militia as well as the regulars. If this practice is acquiesced in, the Confed- 
erate government, which has the control of the purse with the power to tax the 
people of the States to any extent at its pleasure, also acquires the supreme 
control of the military force of the States, and with both the sword and the 
purse in its own hands may become the uncontrollable master instead of the 
useful servant of the States. 

" I am not aware of any case in which the government of the United 
States prior to its disruption ever claimed or exercised the power to accept 
volunteer troops, commission their officers and order them into service, with- 
out consulting the Executive authority of the State from which they were 
received. The idea does not seem ever to have occurred to President Lin- 
coln, so long as he held himself bound by any constitutional restraints, 
that he had any power to accept troops from the border States to assist in 
coercing us into obedience without the prior consent of the Executives of 
those States. Heuce he made his call upon them for troops and met a repulse 
that turned the tide of popular sentiment in our favor in most of those 
States and redounded greatly to the salvation of the South. During the 
war of 1812, when Massachusetts refused to send her troops out of the State, 
the plea of neoissiiy might have been set up by Mr. Madison as a justification 
to some extent for such an encroachment, but neither he, who had partici- 
pated so largely in the formation of the Constitution, nor tlie Congress in 
that day seemed to have felt justified even by necessity in adopting any such 
measure. In the present instance, the plea of necessity could not be set up, 
as it will not be pretended that the Executive of any State in the Confeder- 



270 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

acy had refused to respond promptly to each and every call made upon him 
for troops. Even now, I believe it may be truly said, that the number re- 
quired in each and every case of each and every Executive has been promptly 
furnished. 

" These acts have also been very inconvenient in practice. 
** * * * * ** 

" On several occasions, after I have put companies under orders for the pur- 
pose of filling requisitions made upon me, I have learned that these compa- 
nies had previously left the State without my knowledge, which caused delay 
growing out of the necessity of ordering in other companies to fill their places. 
So long as there are two recognized mihtary heads in the State, each having 
the power to order out the militia without informing the other of the compa- 
nies ordered by him, conflict and confusion must be the inevitable result. 
Again, as these independent regiments receive their commissions from the 
President, and leave the State without official notice to the Executive, there 
is no record in Georgia which gives the names of the officers or privates or 
shows that they are in service from the State. The only knowledge which 
the Executive has of their being in service is such as he derives from the 
newspapers or other channels of information common to any private citizen 
of the State. 

" But I fear that these acts may, in the end, entail upon us or our posterity 
a greater misfortune than the mere practical confusion and inconvenience 
growing out of them. As I have before remarked, they give to the President 
the control of the militia of the States and the appointment of the officers to 
command them, without the consent of the States. This is an imperial 
power, which in the hands of an able, fearless popular leader, if backed by a 
subservient Congress in the exercise of its taxing power, would enable him 
to trample under foot all restraints and make his will the supreme law of the 
land. It may be said in reply to this, that the acts only give the President 
the power to accept the services of such of the militia of the States as volun- 
teer to serve him. This is true. But we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, 
that in times of high political excitement, when the people are divided into 
parties, a fearless favorite leader having this power, and in possession of all 
the public arms, munitions of war, forts, arsenals, dockyards, &c., belonging 
to the government, might be able to rally around him such force as would 
give him a fearful advantage over those who might attempt to prevent the 
accomplishment of his designs. Such is my confidence in the present able 
Executive of the Confederate States, and so thoroughly am I convinced of 
his lofty patriotism and his purity of purpose, that I entertain but little fear 
that he would abuse even absolute power or subvert the liberties of his coun- 
try for his own personal aggrandizement. This is no reason, however, w hy I 
should consent to see absolute power placed in his hands. While I might 
not fear him as a dictator, I would never consent that he be made dictator. 
His term of office is limited by the Constitution and must expire with his 



IN RELATION TO THE WAE. 271 

new term at the end of six years. Hia immediate successor, or some future 
Napoleon, occupying the same position, may be less pure and patriotic, and 
with the precedent established and approved by the people, placing this vast 
military power in his hands, he may make the presidency a stepping stone for 
the gratification of his unholy ambition, and by the use of the military at his 
command, may assume the imperial robes and seat himself upon a throne. 

" To guard effectually against usurpation, sustain republican liberty and pre- 
vent the consolidation of the power and sovereignty of the States in the hands 
of the few, our people should watch, with a jealous eye, every act of their rep- 
resentatives tending to such a result, and condemn in the most unqualified 
manner every encroachment made by the general government upon either the 
rights or the sovereignty of the States." 

The Governor also differed from the Confederate Pres- 
ident on the subject of the right of Georgia troops to 
elect officers. His views and those of the government 
are well stated in the following extract from the annual 
message of November 5, 1863 : — 

"In this connection I earnestly invite the attention of the General Assem- 
bly to the correspondence (copies of which are herewith forwarded) between 
the Secretary of War and myself in reference to the right of Georgia's vol- 
unteer militia in the military service of the Confederacy to elect their own 
oflBcers. And it is proper that I hei'e remark that since the correspondence 
was ended, even the right of the home guards to elect to fill vacancies is 
also denied, and the power of appointing the company ofiicers as well as the 
field officers is claimed by the President. 

"The Constitution gives Congress power to provide for organizing, arming, 
and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be 
employed in the service of the Confederate tS'^aies, reserving to the 5<a/e>s respect- 
ively the appointment of the officers. The right of the State to appoint the of- 
ficers to command her militia or any part thereof, when employed in the ser- 
vice of the Confederate States, is not left to inference, but is reserved in plain, 
simple language, which admits of no two constructions. The State, by her 
constitution and laws, has provided how she will make these appointments. 
All militia officers are to be elected by the people subject to do military duty 
under them, and the officers of the volunteer militia are to be elected by the 
members of the volunteer organization, to be commanded by the officers when 
elected, and all vacancies are to be filled in the same way. In a word, the 
State appoints those who are elected by the persons to be commanded. 

" If the militia of Georgia, or any part thereof, is now employed in the ser- 
vice of the Confederate States, no one can question the right of the State, as 
reserved in the Confederate constitution, to appoint the officers to command 



\ 






272 GOVEENMENT OF GEOEGIA 

them, and the right of the troops, under the constitution and laws of the State, 
to have those elected by them appointed or commissioned to command them, 
is equally unquestionable. 

" By the militia of a State, I understand the framers of the constitution to 
have meant the arms-bearing people of the State. That they intended to use 
the term in this sense is evident from the fact that they speak of the militia 
as in existence at the time they are making the constitution, and confer 
power upon Congress, not to create a new militia, nor to organize that al- 
ready in existence, but to provide for organizing the militia. In other words, 
they gave Congress power to provide for forming into militia organizations 
the arms-bearing people of the respective States. Had the constitution given 
Congress power to organize the militia without any qualifying words, it 
would have had power to appoint officers to command them, or to authorize 
the President to appoint them, as the militia cannot be organized without of- 
ficers. Tlie language used was well weighed and carefully guarded. Power 
was given to Congress to provide for organizing that already in existence with- 
out sufficient organization — the militia or arms-bearing people of the States. 
When Congress has provided for the organization, and the States have or- 
ganized the militia, Congress may authorize the President to employ them in 
the service of the Confederate States, but, in that case, the States expressly 
reserve to themselves the right to appoint the officers to command them, an^ 
Congress cannot, without usurpation, exercise that power or confer it upon 
the President. 

" The President has made repeated calls upon this State for oi'ganized 
bodies of her troops for Confederate service, and his requisitions have invari- 
ably been filled by the tender of militia organized and officered by the State, 
and they have been accepted By him with their officers as organized. In addi- 
tion to this, the conscript act has been passed, which has made all persons be- 
tween 18 and 45, (except those exempted by the act,) subject by compulsion to 
Confederate service. This act has been executed in Georgia. In contem- 
plation of law, every person in this State between 18 and 45, not specially 
exempt, is now in Confederate service ; and the fact corresponds very nearly 
with this contemplation of law. Thus the whole organized militia of the State 
is now employed in the service of the Confederate States ; and notwithstanding 
the State in such case has expressly reserved the right to appoint every officer to 
commwnd them, her right to appoint a single officer to fill a single vacancy in_a 
single company, battalion or regiment, is now denied; and it is claimed that 
they are all in future to be appointed, not by the State, but by the President. 

" One of the reasons given for this extraordinary pretension is, that it will 
not do to trust the troops after they are in service with this important 
right of choosing their own officers, as they would not elect officers who are 
faithful and who maintain discipline and do their duty. This objection 
would certainly apply with equal force to the first election, when a regiment 
or company is being organized. If the men are competent on entering the 



IN EELATION TO THE WAR. 273 

service to elect those who shall command them, why are they not equally 
competent to elect to fill vacancies which afterward occur ? Do experience 
in the military field, and intimate acquaintance with their comrades in arms, 
make them less competent to judge of the qualifications of those who aspire 
to command ? The simple statement of the proposition is a sufficient expose 
of its fallacy. At the organization of our regiments, the men elected officers 
on short acquaintance, as but little time was allowed them ; and doubtless 
made some mistakes, putting in men less competent than some others left 
out. They have since seen them tried in service, and now know who is 
best qualified. But when a vacancy occurs, they are now to be confined to those 
who were first elected to lower positions, to fill the higher positions, to which 
they never chose them. And if an officer who claims promotion is set aside 
for incompetency by an examining board, the next in rank may step for- 
ward and claim the place, and is held to be entitled to it over the best man 
in the regiment if he is a private, though he may be the choice of every man 
in the command. Jt is only the lowest commissioned officer in the company 
who is taken from the ranks ; and if the best and most competent man failed 
to get a commission at the first election, he cannot now aspire from the 
ranks to a higher position than the lowest lieutenancy. This policy of fill- 
ing all vacancies by promotion not only disregards the constitutional rights 
^of the States, but it, does the grossest injustice to those who are often the 
most deserving of promotion, and denies to the men the valuable right of 
selecting their own rulers. 

" If it is said the President may go out of the regular line of promotion, 
and reward merit in the ranks, it may be truly replied that this is seldom 
done; and that tiie men cannot look to their companions in arms, but can 
look only to the President for promotion. This not only concentrates all 
power in his hands, but subjects every man's claims to his favoritism, 
prejudice, or caprice; and destroys independence of thought and of action by 
compelling all to depend for promotion upon their capacity to flatter or their 
ability to please a single individual. Georgia's troops have done their duty 
nobly in the field, and they have a right to look to the government of their 
State for the protection of their rights. Many of them now claim this pro- 
tection. Shall they have it ? 

"I recommend that this General Assembly pass a joint resolution declara- 
tory of the reserved rights of the State, and of the constitutional right of 
election by her troops, and demanding of the Confederate Government the 
recognition of this right." 

Next to the conscription laws and the provision for 
exempting slaveholders, perhaps nothing done by the 
Congress of the Confederacy had so damaging effect as 
the law allowing 



274 GOVERNMENT OF GEORGIA 

Substitutes in the Army. 

Governor Brown's opposition to that law, and the prac- 
tice of government and army officers, is strongly set forth 
in his message to the Legislature, as follows : 

" That portion of the conscript act which authorizes those within conscript 
age to employ substitutes, has, in my opinion, been productive of the most 
unfortunate results. If conscription is right, or if it is to be acquiesced in 
as a matter of necessity, it is certainly just that it act upon all alike, whether 
rich or poor. With the substitution principle in the act, its effect has been 
to compel the poorer class, who have no money with which to employ substi- 
tutes, to enter the army, no matter what may be the condition of their fami- 
lies at home, while the rich, who have money with which to employ 
substitutes, have often escaped compulsory service. This is not just as 
between man and man. While I trust I have shown that the poorest man' 
in the Confederacy has such interest at stake as should stimulate him to en- 
dure any amount of hardship or danger for the success of our cause, it can- 
not be denied that the wealthy are under as great obligation to do service, as 
they have, in addition to the rights and liberties of themselves and their 
children, a large amount of property to protect. If every wealthy man 
would do his duty, and share his part of the dangers of the war, but few 
complaints would be heard from the poor. But if the money of the rich is 
to continue to secure him from the hardships, privations, and dangers, to 
which the poor are exposed, discontent, and more or less demoralization in 
the army must be the inevitable result. 

" He who has paid two or three thousand dollars for his substitute has 
often made it back in a single month by speculation, and it has not 
unfrequently happened that the families of those in service, at eleven dol- 
lars per month, have been the most unfortunate victims of his speculation 
and extortion. 

"A very large number of stout, able-bodied young men, between 18 
and 45 years of age, are now out of the army, and in their places the gov- 
ernment has accepted old men over 45, who have, in most cases, been unable 
to undergo long marches, privation, and fatigue. Thousands of these have 
sunk by the way, either into the hospitals or into the grave. It is also 
understood that much the larger number of deserters and stragglers from the 
army have been substitutes who have entered it for hire, and, after receiving 
the stipulated price, have sought the first opportunity to escape, which they 
have in some instances been permitted to do, with the acquiescence and en- 
couragement of officers who have been their partners in guilty speculation. 
Thus the same individual has been accepted as a substitute for each of sev- 
eral able-bodied young men, who have been left at home to seek for gain and 



IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 275 

enjoy comfort, while our enemies have gained advantages on account of the 
weakness of our armies. 

" If we expect to be successful in our struggle, the law must be so 
changed as to place in serviqe the tens of thousands of young men who are 
now at home. This would reinforce our armies, so as to enable us to drive 
back the enemy upon every part of our borders. After this change in the 
law the government could provide for the protection of the most important 
interests at home, by making proper details of such persons as are indis- 
pensably necessary. This would be much better than the extension of the 
conscription act up to 50 or 55, as it would bring into the field young men 
able to endure service, in place of old men who must soon fail when exposed to 
great fatigue and hardship, many of whom are as competent as young men 
to oversee plantations and attend to other home interests. 

" But it may be denied that the Government can now so change the law as 
to make those who have furnished substitutes liable to service, as it is bound 
by its contract to exempt them, and they have acquired vested rights under 
the contract, which it is not in the power of the Government to divest. Let 
us examine this for a moment. I purchase a lot of land from the State of 
Georgia, and pay her one thousand dollars for it, and she conveys it to me 
by grant under her great seal. The contract is as solemn, and binding, as the 
Government can make it. My fee simple title is vested and complete. But 
while I have the grant in my pocket and the State has my money in her 
treasury, it is discovered that public necessity requires the State to repossess 
herself of the land ; I refuse to sell to her ; she may pay me just compensation, 
and take the land without my consent, and she violates no fundamental princi- 
ple, as all our private rights must yield to the public good, and if we are inj ured 
we can only require just compensation for the injury. 

" Again, suppose I have labored hard and made upon my land a surplus of 
provisions, which are my own right and property, and I refuse to sell them to 
the Government, when the army is in need of them ; it may take them with- 
out my consent and pay me just compensation, and I have been deprived of 
none of my constitutional rights. 

" The right of a person who has employed a substitute, to be exempt 
from military service, can certainly stand upon no higher ground. The Gov- 
ernment has extended to such persons the privilege of exemption upon the 
employment of a proper substitute, but if the public safety requires it, the 
Government certainly has as much right to revoke this privilege as it has to 
take from me my land, or my provisions, or other property, for public use ; 
and all the person who employed the substitute could demand would be just 
compensation for the injury. The measure of damages might be the amount 
paid by the principal for his substitute, less a just pro rata for the time the 
substitute has served; and upon the payment of the damage or the just com- 
pensation for it, the Government would have the right to retain the substi- 
tute, as well as the principal, in service, as the substitute has been paid by 



276 GOVERNMENT IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 

the principal for the service, and the principal has been compensated for the 
damage done him by ordering him into service. It would be competent, 
however, in estimating the damages in such case, to take into the account, 
the interest the principal has in the success of our cause, and the establish- 
ment of our independence, as necessary to the perpetuity of his liberties, and 
the security of all his rights. It would also be competent to inquire whether 
he has indeed suffered any pecuniary loss. If he has paid three thousand 
dollars for a substitute, and has been kept out of the army for that sum for 
one yeai-, and during that time he has made ten thousand dollars more, by 
speculation, or otherwise, than he would have made had he been in the army 
at eleven dollars per month, the actual amount of compensation due from the 
Government to him might be very small indeed, if anything. 

" Believing that the public necessity requires it, and entertaining no doubt 
that Congress possesses the power to remedy the evil, without violating vested 
rights, I respectfully recommend the passage of a joint resolution by this 
General Assembly, requesting Congress to repeal that part of the conscript 
act which authorizes the employment of substitutes, and, as conscription is 
the present policy of the Government, to require all persons able to do mili- 
tary duty, who have substitutes in service, to enter the military service of 
the Confederacy with the least possible delay, and to provide some just rule 
of compensation to those who may be injured by the enactment of such a 
law. I also recommend that said resolution instruct our Senators, and re- 
quest our Representatives in Congress, to vote for and urge the passage of 
this measure at the earliest possible day." 



CHAPTER IX. 

Governor Brown and the Confederate Military. 

Governor Brown took strong and decided ground 
against the practices of the Confederate military of indis- 
criminate seizure and impressment of private property, as 
follows : — 

IMPRESSMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 

" It is also my duty to call your attention to another matter considered by 
the people of this State a subject of grievance. The power is now claimed by 
almost every military commander to impress the private property of the citi- 
zen at his pleasure, without any express order from the Secretary of War for 
that purpose ; and in many cases without the payment of any compensation 
— the officer, who is in some cases only a captain or lieutenant, giving a 
certificate that the property has been taken for public use ; which seizure, 
after long delay, may, or may not, be recognized by the Government ; as 
it may determine that the officer had, or had not, competent authority to 
make it. 

" I am aware that the Constitution confers the power upon the Confederate 
Government to take private property for public use, paying therefor just com- 
pensation ; and I have no doubt that every true and loyal citizen would 
cheerfully acquiesce in the exercise of this power, by the properly authorized 
and responsible agents of the Government, at all times when the public ne- 
cessities might require it. But I deny that every subaltern in uniform who 
passes through the country has the right to appropriate what he pleases of 
the property of the citizen without being able to show the authority of the 
Government for the exercise of this high prerogative. As our people are not 
aware of their proper remedies for the redress of the grievances hereinbefore 
mentioned, T respectfully suggest, that the General Assembly, after consid- 
eration of these questions, declare by resolution or otherwise, their opinion 
as to the power of the Confederate Government and its officers in these par- 
ticulars. I also respectfully request that the General Assembly declare the 
extent to which the Executive of this State will be sustained by the repre- 
sentatives of the people in protecting their rights, and the integrity of the 
Government, and sovereignty of the State, against the usurpations and abuses 
to, which I have invited your attention." 



278 GOVERNOR BROWN 

One of the potent causes of irritation among the poor 
men of the Confederate armies, and which was a fruitful 
and growing cause of discontent, was the small price paid 
to soldiers in actual service after the depreciation of the 
Confederate currency They began to compare their sit- 
uation with the exempts and favored people at home, and 
to think of the insignificant purchasing power of the gov- 
ernment currency ; for instance, that a soldier's wages for 
a month would not buy a bushel of salt for his family or 
a decent pair of shoes for his wife. They began to mur- 
mur and complain, and to deluge the Governor of Georgia, 
whom they from the first regarded as a true friend, ever 
ready to aid them in all methods in his power. He made 
the effort in vain, through the Legislature, to induce Con- 
gress to stimulate and conciliate the army by an increase 
of the pay of soldiers. 

The following pointed message upon that subject shows 
some, at least, of the powerfully working causes of the ul- 
timate downfall of the Confederacy, and constitutes a vital 
part of the history of the struggle. 

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 

MiLLEDGEViLLE, April 6th, 1863. | 
" To the General Assembly: — 

" The armies of the Confederate States are composed, in a great degree, of 
poor men and nou-slaveholders, who have but little property at stake upon 
the issue. The rights and liberties of themselves and of their posterity are, 
however, involved ; and with hearts full of patriotism, they have nobly and 
promptly responded to their country's call, and now stand a living fortifica- 
tion between their homes and the armed legions of the Abolition Government. 
Upon their labor their families at home have depended for support, as they 
have no slaves to work for them. They receive from the Government but 
eleven dollars per month, in depreciated currency, which, at the present high 
prices, will purchase very little of the necessaries of life. The consequence 
is, that the wives of thousands of them are now obliged to work daily in the 
field to make bread — much of the time without shoes to their feet, or even 
'comfortable clothes for themselves or their little children. Many are living 



AND THE CONFEDERATE MILITARY. 279 

upon bread alone, and feel the most painful apprehensions lest the time may 
come when enough even of this cannot be afforded them. In the midst of 
all the privations and sufferings of themselves and their families, the loyalty 
of those brave men to the Government cannot be questioned, and their gal- 
lantry shines more conspicuously upon each successive battle field. Freemen 
have never, in any age of the world, made greater sacrifices in freedom's 
cause, or deserved more of their country or of posterity. 

" While the poor have made and are still making these sacrifices, and sub- 
mitting to these privations to sustain our noble cause and transmit the rich 
blessings of civil and religious liberty and national independence to posterity, 
many of the rich have freely given up their property, endured the hardships 
and privations of military service, and died gallantly upon the battle field. 
It must be admitted, however, that a large proportion of the wealthy class of 
people have avoided the fevers of the camp and the dangers of the battle field, 
and have remained at home in comparative ease and comfort with their 
families. 

" If the enrolling officer under the conscript act has summoned them to 
camp, they have claimed exemption to control their slaves, or they have re- 
sponded with their money, and hired poor men to take their places as sub- 
stitutes. The operation of this act has been grossly unjust and unequal 
between the two classes. When the poor man is ordered to camp by the 
enrolling officer, he has no money with which to employ a substitute, and he 
is compelled to leave all the endearments of home and go. The money of 
the rich protects them. If the substitution principle had not been recognized, 
and the act had compelled the rich and the poor to serve alike, it would have 
been much more just. 

" Again, there is a class of rich speculators who remain at home preying 
like vultures upon the vitals of society, determined to make money at every 
hazard, who turn a deaf ear to the cries of soldiers' families, and are pre- 
pared to immolate even our armies and sacrifice our liberties upon the altar 
of mammon. If laws are passed against extortion, they find means of evad- 
ing them. If the necessaries of life can be monopolized and sold to the poor 
at famine prices, they are ready to engage in it. If contributions are asked 
to clothe the naked soldier or feed his hungry children, they close their 
purses and turn away. Neither the dictates of humanity, the love of coun- 
try, the laws of man, nor the fear of God, seem to control or influence their 
actions. To make money and accumulate wealth is their highest ambition, 
and seems to be the only object of their lives. The pockets of these men 
can be reached in but one way, and that is by the tax gatherer ; and, as 
they grow rich upon the calamities of the country, it is the duty of patriotic 
statesmen and legislators to see that this is done, and that the burdens of 
the war are, at least to some extent, equalized in this way. They should be 
compelled to divide their ill-gotten gains with the soldiers who fight our bat- 
tles ; both they and the wealthy of the country, not engaged as they are, 



280 GOVEENOR BEOWK 

should be taxed to contribute to the wants of the families of those who sacri- 
fice all to protect our lives, our liberties and our property. 

" I consider it but an act of simple justice, for the reasons already stated, 
that the wages of our private soldiers be raised to twenty dollars per month, 
and that of non-commissioned officers in like proportion, and that the wealth 
of the country be taxed to raise the money. I therefore recommend the 
passage of a joint resolution by the Legislature of this State, requesting our 
Senators and Representatives in Congress to bring this question before that 
body, and to do all they can, both by their influence and their vote, to secure 
the passage of an act for that purpose, and to assess a tax sufficient to raise 
the money to pay the increased sum. This would enable each soldier to do 
something to contribute to the comfort of his family while he is fighting the 
battles of his country at the expense of his comfort and the hazard of his 
life. 

" I respectfully but earnestly urge upon you the justice and importance of 
favorable consideration and prompt action upon this recommendation. 

" Let the hearts of our suffering soldiers from Georgia be cheered by the 
intelligence that the Legislature of their State has determined to see that 
justice is done them, and that the wants of themselves and their families are 
supplied, and their arms will be nerved with new vigor when- uplifted to 
strike for the graves of their sires, the homes of their families, the liberties 
of their posterity, and the independence and glory of the Republic. 

"Joseph E. Brown." 

The Legislature, by joint resolution, promptly united 
with the Governor in the justice and importance of the 
matter, and appealed in vain to the Confederate Congress 
to adopt it. 

The efforts to increase the pay of soldiers was met by 
the Government with the presentation of the reason that 
it was ruinous to increase their pay, because the currency 
was already depreciated, and the depreciation would be 
increased with the increase of its volume thus to be ren- 
dered necessary. The troops in the army could not ap- 
preciate the reason while they could see it violated by the 
Government through its agents in every expenditure, ex- 
cept that of paying the soldiers in service. Agents were 
advancing prices rapidly for all government supplies, and 
competitors in market with ready government cash for 



AND THE CONFEDERATE MILITARY. 281 

all the necessaries of life ; in many instances the agents 
and officers buying on speculation and selling to the Gov- 
ernment at large and fabulous profits. The soldiers could 
see that the expansion was rapid ; that the prices advanced 
by Government officers and agents, in order to carry on 
their speculations, excluded their families from the mar- 
kets at any lower rates. They therefore could not see 
the justice of the Government that kept them in service, 
whether they were willing or not under the conscript sys- 
tem, and refused to increase their pay. There were thou- 
sands of men in the service who did not regard the matter, 
and would have remained voluntarily in service without 
any pay at all. But the effect was very injurious upon 
thousands of others who desired the money for their 
families at home. 

Suspension of the Habeas Corpus. 

From an early period of the war, the Governor pro- 
tested in strong terms against the assumed and unauthor- 
ized authority of military commanders to declare martial 
law and place such portions of country or places as they 
desired to have absolute control of under military govern- 
ment, and to suspend civil authority and the processes of 
civil law. 

On the 10th of March, 1864, he communicated his views 
on the subject as follows : — 

" I cannot withhold the expression of the deep mortification I feel at the 
late action of Congress in attempting to suspend the privilege of the writ of 
habeas corpus, and to confer upon the President powers expressly denied to 
him by the Constitution of the Confederate States. Under pretext of a ne- 
cessity which our whole people know does not exist in this case, whatever may 
have been the motives, our Congress with the assent and at the request of 
the executive has struck a fell blow at the liberties of the people of these 
States. 

" The Constitution of the Confederate States declares that, ' The privilege 
of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of 



282 GOVERNOR BROWN 

rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.' The power to sus- 
pend the habeas corpus at all is derived, not from express and direct delega- 
tion, but from implication only, and an implication can never be raised in 
opposition to an express restriction. In case of any conflict between the 
two, an implied power must always yield to express restrictions upon its 
exercise. The power to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus 
derived by implication must therefore be always limited by the express 
declaration in the Constitution that : — 

" ' The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and 
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated; and 
no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oaih or affirma- 
tion, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or 
things to be seized,' and the further declaration that, ' no person shall be de- 
prived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' And that, 

"'In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy 
and public trial by an impartial jury of the State or district where the crime 
shall have been committed, which distinct shall have been previously ascer- 
tained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; 
to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; to have compulsory pro- 
cess for obtaining witnesses in his favor ; and to have the assistance of 
counsel in his defence.' 

"Thus it is an express guaranty of the Constitution that the 'person^' of 
the people shall be secure, and ' no warrants shall issue,' but upon probable 
cause, supported by ' oath or affirmation,' particularly describing ' the persons 
to be seized ; ' that ' no person shall be deprived of liberty, without due pro- 
cess of law,' and that in ' all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy 
the right of a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury.'' 

" The Constitution also defines the powers of the Executive, which are lim- 
ited to those delegated, among which there is no one authorizing him to issue 
warrants or order arrests of persons not in actual military service ; or to sit as 
a judge in any case, to try any person for a criminal offence, or to appoint 
any court or tribunal to do it not provided for in the Constitution as part of 
the judiciary. The power to issue warrants and try persons under criminal 
accusations are judicial powers which belong, under the Constitution, exclu- 
sively to the judiciary and not to the Executive. His power to order arrests 
as commander-in-chief is strictly a military power, and is confined to the 
arrest of persons subject to military power, as to the arrest of persons in the 
army or navy of the Confederate States ; or in the militia, when in the actual 
service of the Confederate States ; and does not extend to any persons 
in civil life unless they be followers of the camp or within the lines of the 
army. This is clear from that provision of the Constitution which declares 
that : — 

" ' No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime 
unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising 



AND THE CONFEDERATE MILITARY. 283 

in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of 
war or public danger.' But even here the power of the President as com- 
mander-in-chief is not absolute, as his powers and duties in ordering arrests 
of persons in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service, 
are clearly defined by the rules and articles of war prescribed by Congress. 
Any warrant issued by the President, or any arrest made by him, or under his 
order, of any person in civil life and not subject to military command, is ille- 
gal and in plain violation of the Constitution ; as it is impossible for Congress 
by implication to confer upon the President the right to exercise powers of 
arrest expressly forbidden to him by the Constitution. Any effort on the 
part of Congress to do thia is but an attempt to revive the odious practice of 
ordering political arrests, or issuing letters de cachet by royal prerogative, so 
long since renounced by our English ancestors ; and the denial of the right 
of the constitutional judiciary to investigate such cases, and the provision for 
creating a court appointed by the Executive, and changeable at his will, to 
take jurisdiction of the same, are in violation of the great principles of 
Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Constitu- 
tion of the Confederate States, upon which both English and American liberty 
rest ; and are but an attempt to revive the odious Star Chamber court of 
England, which, in the hands of wicked kings, was used for tyrannical pur- 
poses by the crown, until it was finally abolished by Act of Parliament, of 
16th Charles the First, which went into operation on the first of August, 
1641. This Act has ever since been regarded as one of the great bulwarks 
of English liberty ; and, as it was passed by the English Parliament to secure 
our English ancestors against the very same character of arbitrary arrests 
which the late Act of Congress is intended to authorize the President to 
make, I append a copy of it to this message, with the same italics and small 
capital letters which are used in the printed copy in the book from which it 
is taken. It will be seen that the court of ' Star Chamber,' which was the 
instrument in the hands of the English king, for investigating his illegal 
arrests and carrying out his arbitrary decrees was much more respectable, on 
account of the character, learning, and ability of its members, than the Con- 
federate Star Chamber, or court of 'proper officers,' which the Act of Con- 
gress gives the President power to appoint to investigate his illegal arrests. 

I am aware of no instance in which the British king has ordered the arrest 
of any person in civil life in any other manner than by judicial warrant is-' 
sued by the established courts of the realm; or in which he has suspended, 
or attempted to suspend, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus since the 
Bill of Rights and act of settlement passed in 16S9. To attempt this in 1864 
would cost the present reigning Queen no less price than her crown. 

" The only suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, known 
to our Constitution, and compatible with the provisions already stated, goes 
to the simple extent of preventing the release under it of persons whose ar- 
rests have been ordered under constitutional warrants from judicial authority. 



284 GOVERNOR BROWN 

To this extent the Constitution allows the suspension in case of rebellion or 
invasion in order that the accused may be certainly and safely held for trial ; 
but Congress has no right under pretext of exercising this power to author- 
ize the President to make illegal arrests prohibited by the Constitution ; and 
when Congress has attempted to confer such powers on the President, if he 
should order such illegal arrests it would be the imperative duty of the 
judges, who have solemnly sworn to support the Constibution, to disregard 
such unconstitutional legislation and grant relief to persons so illegally im- 
prisoned ; and it would be the duty of the legislative and executive depart- 
ments of the States to sustain and protect the judiciary in the discharge of 
this obligation'. 

" By an examination of the act of Congress, now under consideration, it 
will be seen that it is not an act to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas 
corpus in case of warrants issued hj judicial authority ; but the main purpose 
of the act seems to be to authorize the President to issue warrants supported 
by neither oath nor affirmation and to make arrests of persons not in military 
service, upon charges of a nature proper for investigation in the judicial tri- 
bunals only, and to prevent the Courts from inquiring into such arrests, or 
granting relief against such illegal usurpations of power, which are in direct 
and palpable violation of the Constitution. 

" The act enumerates more than twenty different causes of arrest, most of 
which are cognizable and triable only in the judicial tribunals established 
by the Constitution ; and for which no warrants can legally issue for the arrest 
of persons in civil life by any power except the judiciary; and then only 
upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation particularly describing 
the persons to be seized; such as 'treason' 'treasonable efforts or combina- 
tions to subvert the Government of the Confederate States,' 'conspiracies 
to overthrow the G-overnment,' or ' conspiracies to resist the lawful authority 
of the Confederate States,' giving the enemy ' aid and comfort,' ' attempts 
to incite servile insurrection,' ' the burning of bridges,' ' railroad,' or ' tel- 
egraph lines,' 'harboring deserters,' and ' other offences against the laws of 
the Confederate States,' &c., &c. And as if to place the usurpation of power 
beyond doubt or cavil, the act expressly declares that the ' suspension shall 
apply only to the case of persons arrested or detained by the President, the Sec- 
retary of War, or the general officer commanding the Trans-Mississippi Mil- 
itary Department, hy authority and under the control of the President,' in the 
cases enumerated in the act, most of which are exclusively of judicial cogni- 
zance, and in which cases the President has not the shadow of constitutional 
authority to issue warrants or order arrests, but is actually prohibited by the 
Constitution from doing so. 

" This then is not an act to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas 
corpus in the manner authorized by implication by the Constitution; but it 
is an act to authorize the President to make illegal and unconstitutional arrests 
in cases which the Constitution gives to the judiciary, and denies to the Ex- 



AND THE CONFEDERATE MILITARY. 285 

ecutive ; and to prohibit all judicial interference for the relief of the citizen, 
when tyrannized over by illegal arrest, under letters de cachet issued by Ex- 
ecutive authority. 

" Instead of the legality of the arrest being examined in the judicial tribu- 
nals appointed by the Constitution, it is to be examined in the Confederate 
Star Chamber; that is, by officers appointed by the President. Why say 
that the ^President shall cause proper officers to investigate' the legality 
of arrests ordered by him ? Why not permit the Judges, whose constitu- 
tional right and duty it is, to do it ? 

" We are witnessing with too much indifference assumptions of power by 
the Confederate Government which in ordinary times would arouse the 
whole country to indignant rebuke and stern resistance. History teaches 
us that submission to one encroachment upon constitutional liberty is always 
followed by another ; and we should not forget that important rights, yielded 
to those in power, without rebuke or protest, are never recovered by the 
people without revolution. 

"If this act is acquiesced in, the President, the Secretary of War, and the 
commander of the Trans-Mississippi department uader the control of the 
President, each has the power conferred by Congress to imprison whomso- 
ever he chooses ; and it is only necessary to allege that it is done on account 
of ' treasonable efforts ' or of ' conspiracies to resist the lawful authority of 
the Confederate States,' or for 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy,' or 
other of the causes of arrest enumerated in the Statute, and have a subaltern 
to file his affidavit accordingly after the arrest if a writ of habeas corpus is 
sued out, and no court dare inquii-e into the cause of the imprisonment. 
The Statute makes the President and not the courts the judge of the suffi- 
ciency of the cause for his own acts. Either of you or any other citizen of 
Georgia, may at any moment (as Mr. Vallandigham was in Ohio) be drag- 
ged from your homes at midnight by armed force, and imprisoned at tlie will 
of the President, upon the pretext that you have been guilty of some offence 
of the character above named, and no court known to our judiciary can in- 
quire into the wrong or grant relief. 

" When such bold strides towards military despotism and absolute author- 
ity are taken by those in whom we have confided, and who have been placed 
in high official position, to guard and protect constitutional and personal 
liberty, it is the duty of every patriotic citizen to sound the alarm ; awd of 
the State Legislatures to say in thunder tones, to those who assume to govern 
us by absolute power, that there is a point beyond which freemen will not 
permit encroachments to go. 

" The Legislatures of the respective States are looked to as the guardians 
of the rights of those whom they represent, and it is their duty to meet such 
dangerous enactments upon the liberties of the people promptly; and express 
their unqualified condemnation ; and to instruct their Senators and request 
their Representatives to repeal this most monstrous act, or resign a trust 



286 CAUSES OF THE WAE, 

which by permitting it to remain on the statute book they abuse, to the injury 
of those who have honored them with their confidence in this trying period 
of our history. I earnestly recommend that the Legislature of this State 
take prompt action upon this subject, and stamp the act with the seal of their 
indignant rebuke. 

"Can the President no longer trust the judiciary with the exercise of the 
legitimate powers conferred upon it by the Constitution and laws ? In what 
instance have the grave and dignified Judges proved disloyal or untrue to 
our cause ? When have they embarrassed the Government by turning loose 
traitors, skulkers or spies? Have they not in every instance given the Gov- 
ernment the benefit of their doubts in sustaining its action, though they might 
thereby seem to encroach upon the rights of the States, and for a time deny 
substantial justice to the people ? Then why this implied censure upon them ? 

" What justification exists now for this most monstrous deed which did 
not exist during the first or second year of the war, unless it be found in the 
fact, that those in power have found the people ready to submit to every en- 
croachment rather than make an issue with the Government while we are 
at war with the enemy ; and have on that account been emboldened to take 
the step which is intended to make the President as absolute in his power of 
arrest and imprisonment as the Czar of all the Russias? What reception 
would the members of Congress from the different States have met in 1861, 
had they returned to their constituents and informed them that they had sus- 
pended the habeas corpus, and given the President the power to imprison the 
people of these States with no restraint upon his sovereign will? Why is 
liberty less sacred now than it was in 1831? And what will we have gained 
when we have achieved our independence of the Northern States if, in our 
efforts to do so, we have permitted our form of government to be subverted, 
and have lost constitutional liberty at home ? 

" The hope of the country now rests in the new Congress soon to assemble. 
They must maintain our liberties against encroachment and wipe this and 
all such stains from the statute book, or the sun of liberty will soon set in 
darkness and blood. 

" Let the constituted authorities of each State send up to their representa- 
tives when they assemble in Congress an unqualified demand for prompt re- 
dress ; or a return of the commissions which they hold from their respective 
States." 

The Causes of the War, How Conducted, and Who 

Responsible 

He discusses as follows : — 

*' Cruel, bloody, desolating war is still waged against us by our relentless 
enemies, who, disregarding the laws of nations and the rules of civilized war- 



AND WHO EESPONSIBLE, 287 

fare, whenever either interferes with their fanatical objects or their interest, 
have in numerous instances been guilty of worse than savage cruelty. 

" They have done all in their power to burn our cities when unable by 
their skill and valor to occupy them ; and to turn innocent women and chil- 
dren, who may have escaped death by the shells thrown among them without 
previous notice, into the streets destitute of homes, food and clothing. 

" They have devastated our country wherever their unhallowed feet have 
trod our soil, burning and destroying factories, mills, agricultural implements, 
and other valuable property. 

"They have cruelly treated our sons while in captivity, and in violation of 
a cai'tel agreed upon, have refused to exchange them with us for their own 
soldiers unless we would consent, against the laws of nations, to exchange 
our slaves as belligerents when induced or forced by them to take up arms 
against us. 

" They have done all in their power to incite our slaves to insurrection and 
murder, and when unable to seduce them from their loyalty, have, when they 
occupied our country, compelled them to engage in war against us. 

" They have robbed us of our negro women and children who were com- 
fortable, contented and happy with their owners, and, under pretext of ex- 
traordinary philanthropy, have in the name of liberty congregated thousands 
of them together in places where they could have neither the comforts nor 
the necessaries of life, there neglected and despised, to die by pestilence and 
hunger. 

" In numerous instances their brutal soldiers have violated the persons of 
our innocent and helpless women ; and have desecrated the graves of our 
ancestors, and polluted and defiled the altars which we have dedicated to the 
worship of the living God. 

" In addition to these and other enormities, hundreds of thousands of val- 
uable lives both North and South have been sacrificed, causing the shriek of 
the mother, the wail of the widow, and the cry of the orphan to ascend to 
Heaven from almost every hearthstone in all the broad land once known as 
the United States. 

"Such is but a faint picture of the devastations, cruelty, and bloodshed, 
which have marked this struggle. 

" War in its most mitigated form, when conducted according to the ruh s 
established by the most enlightened and civilized nations, is a terrible scourge, 
and cannot exist without the most enormous guilt resting upon the heads of 
those who have without just cause brought it upon the innocent and helpless 
people who are its unfortunate victims. Guilt may rest in unequal degrees 
in a struggle like this upon both parties, but both canuot be innocent. 
Where then rests this crushing load of guilt? 

" While I trust I shall be able to show that it rests not upon the people nor 
rulers of the South, I do not claim that it rested at the commencement of the 
struggle upon the whole people of the North. 



288 CAUSES OF THE WAR, 

" There was a large, intelligent, and patriotic portion of the people of the 
Northern States led by such men as Pierce, Douglas, Vallandigham, Bright, 
Voorhees, Pugh, Seymour, Wood, and many other honored names, who did 
all in their power to rebuke and stay the wicked, reckless fanaticism which 
precipitated the two sections into this terrible conflict. With such men as 
these in power we might have lived together in the Union perpetually. 

"In addition to the strength of the Democratic party in the North there 
was a large number of persons whose education had brought them into sym- 
pathy with the so-called Republican or, in other words, the old Federal con- 
solidation party, who would never have followed the wicked leaders of that 
party who used the slavery question as a hobby upon which to ride into 
power, and who to-day stand before Heaven and Earth guilty of shedding 
the blood of hundreds of thousands and destroying the brightest hopes of 
posterity, had tliey known the true objects of their leaders and the results 
which must follow the triumph of their policy at the ballot-box. 

" The moral guilt of this war rested then in its incipiency neither upon the 
people of the South, nor upon the Democratic party of the North, or upon 
that part of the Republican party who were deluded and deceived. But it 
rested upon the heads of the wicked leaders of the Republican party who 
had refused to be bound by the compacts of the Constitution made by our 
common ancestry. These men when in power in the respective States of the 
North arrayed themselves in open hostility against an important provision of 
the Constitution, for the security of clearly expressed and unquestionable 
rights of the people of the Southern States. 

" Many of the more fanatical of them denounced the Constitution because 
of its protection of the property of the slaveholder as a ' covenant with death 
and a league with Hell,' and refusing to be bound by it, declared that a 
* higher law ' was the rule of their conduct and appealed to the Bible as that 
•higher law.' But when the precepts of God in favor of slavery were found 
in both the Old and the New Testament they repudiated the Bible and its 
divine Author and declared for an anti-Slavery Bible and an anti- Slavery God. 

" The abolition party having, when in power in their respective States, set 
at naught that part of the Constitution which guarantees protection to the 
rights and property of the Southern people, and having by fraud and mis- 
representation obtained possession of the Federal government, the Southern 
people in self-defence were compelled to leave the Union in which their 
rights were no longer respected. Having destroyed the Union by their 
wicked acts and their bad faith, these leaders rallied a majority of the people 
of the North to their support with a promise to restore it again hy force. 
Monstrous paradox ! that a Union which was formed upon a compact be- 
tween sovereign States, being eminently a creature of consent, is to be up- 
held hy force. But monstrous as it is, the war springs ostensibly from this 
source — this is its origin, its soul, and its life, so far as a shadow of pretext 
for it can be found. In their mad effort to restore by force a Union which 



AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 289 

they have destroyed, and to save themselves from the just vengeance which 
awaited them for their crimes, the abolition leaders in power have lighted up 
the continent with a blaze of war which has destroyed hundreds of millions 
of dollars worth of property, and hundreds of thousands of valuable lives, and 
loaded posterity with a debt which must cause wretchedness and poverty for 
generations to come. And all for what? That fanaticism might triumph 
over constitutional liberty, as achieved by the great men of 1776, and that 
ambitious men might have place and power. In their efforts to destroy our 
liberties the people of the North, if successful, would inevitably lose their 
own by overturning, as they are now attempting to do, the great principles 
of Republicanism upon which constitutional liberty rests. The Government 
in the hands of the abolition administration is now a despotism as absolute as 
that of Russia. 

" Unoffending citizens are seized in their beds at night by armed force and 
dragged to dungeons and incarcerated at the will of the tyrant, because they 
have dared to speak for constitutional liberty, and to protest against military 
despotism. 

" The habeas corpus, — that great bulwark of liberty, without which no peo- 
ple can be secure in their lives, persons, or property ; which cost the English 
several bloody wars, and which was finally wrung from the crown by the 
sturdy barons and people at the point of the bayonet ; which has ever 
been the boast of every American patriot, and which I pray God may never, 
under pretext of military necessity, be yielded to encroachments by the people 
of the South, — has been trampled under foot by the Government at Wash- 
ington, which imprisons at its pleasure whomsoever it will. 

" The freedom of the ballot-box has also been destroyed, and the elections 
have been carried by the overawing influence of military force. 

" Under pretext of keeping men enough in the field to subdue the South, 
President Lincoln takes care to keep enough to hold the North in subjection 
also — to imprison, or exile those who attempt to sustain their ancient rights, 
liberties, and usages, and to drive from the ballot box those who are not 
subservient to his will, or enough of them to enable his party to carry the 
elections. Can an intelligent Northern conservative man contemplate this 
state of things, without exclaiming, 'whither are we drifting? What will 
we gain by the subjugation of the South, if in our attempt to do it we must 
lose our own liberties ; and visit upon ourselves and our posterity the 
chains of military despotism ? ' 

" How long a people once free will submit to the despotism of such a gov- 
ernment the future must develop. One thing is certain ; while those who 
now rule remain in power in Washington the people of the Sovereign States 
of America can never adjust their difficulties. But war, bloodshed, devasta- 
tion, and increased indebtedness must be the inevitable result. There must 
be a change of administration, and more moderate councils prevail in the 
Northern States before we can ever have peace. While subjugation, aboli- 
19 



290 CAUSES OF THE WAR, 

tion, and confiscation are the terms offered by the Federal Government, the 
Southern people will resist as long as the patriotic voice of woman can 
stimulate a guerrilla band or a single armed soldier to deeds of daring in 
defence of liberty and home. 

" I have said the South is not the guilty party in this dreadful carnage, 
and I think it not inappropriate that the reasons should often be repeated at 
the bar of an intelligent public opinion ; that our own people and the world 
should have ' line upon line, and precept upon precept,' ' here a little and 
there a little,' * in season and out of season ' as some may suppose, to 
show the true nature of this contest, the principles involved, the objects 
of the war on our side, as well as that of the enemy, that all right minded 
men everywhere may see and understand that this contest is not of our seek- 
ing, and that we have had no wish or desire to injure those who war against 
us except so far as has been necessary for the protection and preservation 
of ourselves. Our sole object from the beginning has been to defend, main- 
tain, and preserve our ancient usages, customs, liberties, and institutions, as 
achieved and established by our ancestors in the revolution of 1776. 

" That Revolution was undertaken to establish two great rights — State 
sovereignty and self government. Upon these the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was predicated, and they were the corner-stone upon which the 
Constitution rested. The denial of these two great principles cost Great 
Britain her American Colonies which had so long been her pride. And the 
denial of them by the Government at Washington, if persisted in, must cost 
the people of the United States the liberties of themselves and their poster- 
ity. These are the pillars upon which the temple of constitutional liberty 
stands, and if the Northern people, in their mad effort to destroy the sover- 
eignty of the Southern States and take from our people the rights of self 
government, should be able, with the strength of an ancient Samson, to lay 
hold upon the pillars, and overturn the edifice, they must necessarily be 
crushed beneath its ruins, as the destruction of State sovereignty and the 
right of self government in the Southern States, by the agency of the Fed- 
eral Government, necessarily involves the like destruction in the Northern 
States ; as no people can maintain these rights for themselves who will shed 
the blood of their neighbors to destroy them in others. It is impossible for 
half the States of a Confederacy, if they assist the central government to 
destroy the rights and liberties of the other half, to maintain their own 
rights and liberties against the central power after it has crushed their 
Co-States. 

" The two great truths announced by Mr. Jefferson, in the Declaration of 
Independence and concurred in by all the great men of the Revolution were, 
1st, ' That Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the 
governed.' 2d, ' That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, 
free and independent Slates.' 

" We are not to understand by the first great truth that each individual 



AND WHO EESPONSIBLE. 291 

member of the aggregate mass composing the State must give his consent 
before he can be justly governed ; or that the consent of each or a particular 
class of individuals in a State is necessary. By the ' governed ' is evidently 
here meant communities and bodies of men capable of organizing and main- 
taining government. The 'consent of the governed' refers to the aggregate 
will of the community or State in its organized form, and expressed through 
its legitimate and properly constituted oi-gans. 

" In elaborating this great truth Mr. Jefferson in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence says, that governments are instituted among men to secure certain 
'inalienable rights' — that 'among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness; ' ' that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of 
these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to insti- 
tute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organ- 
izing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their 
safety and happiness.' 

" According to this great fundamental principle the Sovereign States of 
America, North and South, can only be governed by their own consent; and 
whenever the government to which they have given their consent becomes 
destructive of the great ends for which it was formed, they have a perfect 
right to ' abolish it ' by withdrawing their consent from it, as the Colonies 
did from the British Government, and to form a ' new Government, with its 
foundations laid on such principles, and its powers organized in such form as 
to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.' Upon 
the application to the present controversy of this great principle, to which 
the Northern States are as firmly committed as the Southern States, Georgia 
can proudly challenge New York to trial before the bar of enlightened pub- 
lic opinion, and impartial history must write the verdict in her favor and 
triumphantly vindicate her action in the course she has pursued. 

" Not only all the sovereign States of America have heretofore recognized 
this great truth, but it has been recognized by the able and enlightened Em- 
peror of the French, who owes his present elevation to the 'consent of the 
governed.' 

"He was called to the presidency by the free suffrage or consent of the 
French people, and when he assumed the imperial title he again submitted 
the question to the ' governed ' at the ballot-box, and they gave their 
' consent.' 

" At the recent treaty of peace with the Emperor of Austria he ceded an 
Austrian province to France, and Najjoleon refused to 'govern it' till the 
people at the ballot-box gave ' their consent ' that he should do so. 

" The Northern States of America are to-day, through the agency of the 
despotism at Washington, waging a bloody war upon the Southern States, 
to crush out this great American principle announced and maintained in a 
seven years' war by our common ancestry, after it has won the approbation 
of the ablest and most enlightened sovereign of Europe. 



292 CAUSES OF THE WAR, 

" In discussing this great principle I can but remark how strange is the 
contrast between the conduct of the Emperor Napoleon and that of President 
Lincoln. Napoleon refuses to govern a province till a majority of the people 
at the ballot-box have given their consent. Lincoln, after having done all 
in his power to destroy the freedom and purity of the ballot-box, announces 
in his late proclamation his determination to govern the sovereign States of 
the South by force, and to recognize and maintain as the Government of 
these States, not those who at the ballot-box can obtain the ' consent of the 
governed,' or of a majority of the people, but those vfho can obtain the con- 
sent of one tenth of the people of the State. Knowing that he can never gov- 
ern these States with ' the consent of the governed,' he tramples the Declar- 
ation of Independence under his feet and proclaims to the world that he will 
govern these States, not by the ' consent of the governed ' but by military 
power, so soon as he can find one tenth of the governed humiliated enough to 
give their consent. 

" But the world must be struck with the absurdity of the pretext upon 
which he bases this extraordinary pretension. He says, in substance, the 
Constitution required him to guarantee to each State a Republican form of 
Government. And for the purpose of carrying out this provision of the Con- 
stitution he proclaims that, so soon as one tenth of the people of each of the 
seceded States shall be found abject enough to take an oath to support his 
unconstitutional acts and at the same time to support the Constitution, and 
shall do this monstrous deed, he will permit them to organize a State Gov- 
ernment and will recognize them as the Government of the State and their 
officers as the regularly constituted authorities of the State. These he will 
aid in putting down, driving out, expelling, and exterminating the other 
nine tenths, if they do not likewise take the prescribed oath. 

" One tenth of the people of a State put up and aided by military force to 
rule, govern, or exterminate nine tenths ! And this to be done under the 
guise or pi'ofessed object of guaranteeing Republicanism ! What would 
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Hancock, or even Hamil- 
ton have said to this kind of Republicanism ? What say the conservative 
Northern statesmen of the present day, if permitted to speak ? Does such a 
government as this derive its just powers from the ' consent of the governed ?' 
Is this their understanding of the Republican Government which the United 
States is to guarantee to each State? If so, what guaranty have they for the 
freedom of their posterity ? If the Government at Washington guarantees 
such Republicanism as this to Georgia in 1864, what may be her guaranty to 
Ohio and other Western States in 1874 ? 

" The absurdity of such a position, on constitutional principles ojf views, is 
too glaring for comment. When such terms are offered to them, well may 
the people of these States be nerved to defend their rights and liberties at 
every hazard, under every privation, and to the last extremity. 

" But I must notice the other great truth promulgated in the Declaration 



AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 293 

of Independence — that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, 
free and independent States. 

" George the third denied this great truth in 1776, and sent his armies into 
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, to crush out its advocates, and main- 
tain over the people a government which did not derive its powers from the 
' consent of the governed.' President Lincoln in 1861 has made war upon 
the same States and their Confederates to crush out the same doctrine by 
armed force. Yet he has none of the apparent justification before the world 
that the British King had. The colonies had been planted, nurtured and 
governed by Great Britain. As States, they had never been independent and 
never claimed to be. This claim was set up for the first time in the Declarar 
tion of Independence. Under these circumstances, there was some reason 
why the British Crown should resist it. But the great truth proclaimed was 
more powerful than the armies and navy of Great Britain. 

" On the 4th of July, 1776, our fathers made this declaration of freedom 
and independence of the States. The Revolution was fought upon this 
declaration, and on the 3d day of September, 1783, in the treaty of peace, 
' His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, to wit, New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence plantations, 
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, 
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to he free, sovereign 
and independent States, that he treats with them as such,' etc. 

" On and after that day, Georgia stood before the world clad in all the 
habiliments and possessed of all the attributes of sovereignty. When did 
Georgia lose this sovereignty ? Was it by virtue of her previous compact 
with her sister States ? Certainly not. 

" The Articles of Confederation between the colonies, during the struggle, 
set forth the objects to be attained, and the nature of the bond between the 
parties to it, and the separate sovereignty of each of the States a party to it 
was expressly reserved. Was it when she with the other States formed the 
Constitution in 1787 ? Clearly not. The Constitution was a compact be- 
tween the thirteen States, each of which had been recognized separately by 
name, by the British King, as a free, sovereign and independent State. 

" The objects and purposes for which the Federal Government was formed 
were distinctly specified, and were all set forth in the compact. The govern- 
ment created by it was limited in its powers by the grant, with an express 
reservation of all powers not delegated. The great attribute of separate 
State Sovereignty was not delegated. In this particular, there was no change 
from the Articles of Confederation, Sovereignty was still reserved and abided 
with the States respectively. This more * perfect Union ' was based upon 
the assumption that it was for the best interest of all the States to enter 
into it, with the additional grant of powers and guarantees — each State being 
bound as a sovereign to perform and discharge to the others all the new 
obligations of the compact. It was so submitted to the people of the States 



294 CAUSES OF THE WAR, 

respectively and so acceded to by them. The States did not part with their 
separate sovereignty by the adoption of the Constitution. In that instrument 
all the powers delegated are specifically mentioned. Sovereignty, the great- 
est of all political powers, the source from which all others emanate, is not 
amongst those mentioned. It could not have been parted with except by 
grant either expressed or clearly implied. The most degrading act a State 
can do is to lay down or surrender her sovereignty. Indeed, it cannot be 
done except by deed or grant. The surrender is not to be found in the Con- 
stitution amongst the expressly granted powers. It cannot be amongst those 
granted by implication ; for by the terms of the compact none are granted by 
implication except such as are incidental to or necessary and proper to exe- 
cute those that are expressly granted. The incident can never be greater 
than the object — and if nothing in the powers expressly granted amounts to 
sovereignty, that which is the greatest of all powers cannot follow or be car- 
ried after a lesser one, as an incident by implication— and then to put the 
matter at rest forever, it is expressly declared that the powers not delegated 
are reserved to the States respectively or to the people. Sovereignty, the 
great source of all power, therefore was left with the States by the compact, 
left whei'e King George left it, and left where it has ever since remained, and 
will remain forever if the people of the States are true to themselves, and 
true to the great principles which their forefathers achieved at such cost of 
blood and treasure, in the war of 1776. 

"The Constitution was only the written contract or bond between the 
sovereign States in which the covenants were all plainly expressed, and each 
State as a sovereign pledged its faith to its sister States to observe and 
keep these covenants. So long as each did this, all were bound by the com- 
pact. But it is a rule as well known and as universally recognized in savage 
as in civilized life — as well understood and as generally acquiesced in be- 
tween sovereign States as between private individuals, that when one party 
to a contract refuses to be bound by it, and to conform to its requirements, 
the other party is released from further compliance. 

" Without entering into an argument to show the manner in which the 
Northern States had perverted the contract, and warped its terms to suit 
their own interest, in the enactment and enforcement of tariff laws for the 
protection of their industry at the expense of the South, and in the enact- 
ment of internal improvement laws, coast navigation laws, fishery laws, etc., 
etc., which were intended to enrich them at the expense of the people of the 
South, I need cite but a single instance of open, avowed, self-confessed, and 
even boasted violation of the compact by the Northern States, to prove that 
the Southern States were released and discharged from further obligation to 
the Northern States by every known rule of law, morality, or comity. 

" One of the express covenants in the written bond to which the Northern 
States subscribed, and without which, as is clearly seen by reference to the 
debates in the Convention which formed the Constitution, the Southern States 
never would have agreed to or formed the compact, was in these words : 



AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 295 

" * No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, 
escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be 
discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of 
the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' 

"Massachusetts and other abolition States utterly repudiated, annulled, 
and set at naught this provision of the Constitution ; and refused either to 
execute it or to permit the constituted authorities of the United States to 
carry it out within their limits. 

" This shameful violation by Massachusetts of her plighted faith to Georgia, 
and this refusal to be bound by the parts of the Constitution which she re- 
garded burdensome to. her and unacceptable to her people, released Georgia 
according to every principle of international law from further compliance 
on her part. In other words, the Constitation was the bond of Union be- 
tween Georgia and Massachusetts, and when Massachusetts refused longer 
to be bound by the Constitution, she thereby dissolved the union between her 
and Georgia. 

" It is truthfully said in the Declaration of Independence, that * experience 
hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are suffer- 
able, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are ac- 
customed.' So it was with Georgia and her Southern sisters in this case. 
Though Massachusetts and other Northern States by their faithless acts and 
repudiation of the compact had dissolved the union existing between the 
States, the Southern States did not declare the dissolution ; hoping that a 
returning sense of justice on the part of the Northern States might cause 
them again to observe their Constitutional obligations. So far from this be- 
ing the case, they construed our forbearance into a consciousness of our weak- 
ness, and inability to protect ourselves ; and they organized a great sectional 
party, whose political creed was founded in injustice to the South ; and whose 
public declarations a.nd acts sustained the action of Massachusetts and the 
other faithless States. 

" 'J'his party, whose creed was avowed hostility to the rights of the South, 
triumphed in the election for President in 1860. The election of a Federal 
Executive by a sectional party, upon a platform of avowed hostility to the Con- 
stitutional rights of the South, to carry out in the Federal administration 
the doctrines of Massachusetts, and other faithless States, left no further 
ground for hope that the rights of the South would longer be respected by 
the Northern States ; which had not only the Executive, but a majority of 
the Congress. 

" The people of the Southern States, each sovereign State acting for itself, 
then met in Convention ; and, in the most solemn manner known to our form 
of government, resumed the exercise of the powers which they had delegated 
to the common agent, now faithless to the trust reposed in it. 

"The right of Georgia as a member to the original compact to do this is 
too clear for successful denial. And the right of Alabama, and the other 



296 CAUSES OF THE WAE, 

States, which had been admitted into the union since the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, is equally incontrovertible ; as each new State came into the union 
as a sovereign, upon an equal footing in all respects whatever with the origi- 
nal parties to the compact. 

" The Confederate States can, therefore, with confidence, submit their acts 
to the judgment of mankind; while with a clear conscience they appeal to 
a just God to maintain them in their course. They were ever true to the com- 
pact of the Union so long as they remained members of it — their obligations 
under it were ever faithfully performed ; and no breach of it was ever laid at 
their door, or truly charged against them. In exercising their undoubted 
right to withdraw from the Union, when the covenant had been broken by 
the Northern States, they sought no war — no strife. — They simply withdrew 
from further connection with self-confessed, faithless confederates. They 
offered no injury to them — threatened none — proposed none — intended none. 
If their previous union with the Southern States had been advantageous to 
them, and our withdrawal affected their interests injuriously, they ought to 
have been truer to their obligations. They had no just cause to complain of 
us, the breach of the compact was by themselves — the vital cord of the union 
was severed by their own hands. 

"After the withdrawal of the Confederate States from the Union, if those 
whose gross dereliction of duty had caused it had reconsidered their own acts 
and offered new assurances for better faith in future, the question would have 
been fairly and justly put to the seceded States, in their sovereign capacity, 
to determine whether, in view of their past and future interest and safety, 
they should renew the union with them or not, and upon what terms and 
guarantees ; and if they had found it to be their interest to do so, upon any 
terms that might have been agreed upon, on the principle assumed at the be- 
ginning, that it was for the best interest of all the States to be bound by 
some compact of union with a central government of limited powers, each 
State faithfully performing its obligations, they would doubtless have con- 
sented to it. But if they had found it to be their interest not to do it, they 
would not and ought not to have done it. For the first law of nature, as ap- 
plicable to States and communities as to individuals, is self-protection and 
self-preservation. 

"Possibly a new government might have been formed at that time, upon 
the basis of the Germanic Confederation ; with a guaranty of the complete 
sovereignty of all the separate States, and with a central agent or govern- 
ment of more limited powers than the old one ; which would have been as 
useful for defence against foreign aggression, and much less dangerous to the 
sovereignty and the existence of the States than the old one when in the 
hands of abolition leaders had proved itself to be. 

" The length of time for which the Germanic Confederation has existed, 
has proved that its strength lies in what might have been considered its weak- 
ness — the separate sovereignty of the individual members, and the very lim- 
ited powers of the central government. 



AND WHO EESPONSIBLE. 297 

" In taking the step which they wei'e forced to do, the Southern States 
were careful not to provoke a conflict of arms, or any serious misunderstand- 
ing with the States that adhered to the government at Washington, as long 
as it was possible to avoid it. Commissioners were sent to Washington to 
settle and adjust all matters relating to their past connection, or joint inter- 
ests and obligations, justly, honorably, and peaceably. Our commissioners 
were not received — they were denied the privilege of an audience — they were 
not heard. But they were indirectly trifled with, lied to, and misled by du- 
plicity as infamous as that practised by Philip of Spain towards the peace 
commissioners sent by Elizabeth of England. They were detained and de- 
ceived with private assurances of a prospect of a peaceful settlement; while 
the most extensive preparations were being made for war and subjugation. 
When they discovered this they withdrew, and the government at Washing- 
ton continued its vigorous preparations to reinforce its garrisons and hold 
the possession of our forts, and to send armies to invade our territory. 

" Having completed his preparations for war, and refused to hear any 
propositions for a peaceful adjustment of our difficulties, President Lincoln 
issued his proclamation declaring Georgia and the other seceded States to be 
in rebellion, and sent forth his armies of invasion. 

"In rebellion against whom or what? As sovereign States have no com- 
mon arbitei*, to whose decision they can appeal when they are unable to settle 
their differences amicably, they often resort to the sword as the arbiter ; and 
as sovereignty is always in dignity the equal of sovereignty, and a sovereign 
can know no superior to which allegiance is due, one sovereign may be at 
war with another, but one can never be in rebellion against another. 

" To say that the sovereign State of Georgia is in rebellion against the sov- 
ereign State of Rhode Island is as much an absurdity as it would be to say 
that the sovereign State of Russia was in rebellion against the sovereign 
State of Great Britain in their late war. They were at war with each other, 
but neither was in rebellion against the other, nor indeed could be; for 
neither owed any allegiance to the other. 

" Nor could one of the sovereign States be in rebellion against the govern- 
ment of the United States. That government was the creature of the States 
by which it was created ; and they had the same power to destroy it at pleas- 
ure which they had to make it. It was their common agent with limited 
powers, and the States by which the agency was created had the undoubted 
right, when it abused these powers, to withdraw them. Suppose, by mutual 
consent, all the States in the Union had met in convention, each in its sov- 
ereign capacity, and had withdrawn all the delegated powers from the Fede- 
ral government, and all the States had refused to send Senators or Represent- 
atives to Congress, or to elect a President ; will any sane man question their 
right, or deny that such action of the States would have destroyed the Federal 
government? If so, the Federal government was the creature of the States 
and could exist only at their pleasure. It lived and breathed only by their 



298 CAUSES OF THE WAR, 

consent. If all the parties to the compact had the right by mutual consent 
to resume the powers delegated by them to the common agent, why had not 
part of them the right to do so when the others violated the compact — refused 
to be bound longer by its obligations, and thereby released their copartners? 
The very fact that the States by which it was formed could at any time by 
mutual consent disband, and destroy the Federal government, shows that it 
had no original, inherent sovei-eignty or jurisdiction. As the creature of the 
States it had only such powers and jurisdictions as they gave it; and it held 
what it had at their pleasure. If, therefore, a State withdrew from the con- 
federacy without just cause, it was a question for the other sovereign States 
to consider what should be their future relations towards it, but it was a 
question of which the Federal government had not the shadow of jurisdiction. 
So long as Georgia remained in the Union, if her citizens had refused to obey 
such laws of Congress as it had constitutional jurisdiction to pass, they might 
have been in rebellion against the Federal government, because they resisted 
the authority over them which Georgia had delegated to that government, and 
which, with her consent, it still possessed. But if Georgia for just cause, of 
which she was the judge, chose to withdraw from the Union and resume the 
attributes of sovereignty which she had delegated to the United States Gov- 
ernment, her citizens could no longer be subject to the laws of the Union, and 
no longer guilty as rebels if they did not obey them. 

"It could be as justly said that the principal who has delegated certain 
limited powers to his agent in the transaction of business, which he has 
afterwards withdrawn on account of their abuse by the agent, is in rebellion 
against the agent; or that the master is in rebellion against his servant; or 
the landlord against his tenant ; because he has withdrawn certain privi- 
leges for a time allowed them, as that Georgia is in rebellion against her 
former agent, the government of the United States. 

" These I understand to be the great fundamental doctrines of our republi- 
can form of government so ably expounded in the Virginia and Kentucky 
resolutions of 1798 and 1799, which have ever since been a text book of the 
true republican party of the United States. Departure from these principles 
has destroyed the federal government and been the prolific cause of all our woes. 
Out of this departure has sprung the doctrine of loyalty and disloyalty of 
the States to the Federal government, from which comes ostensibly this war 
against us ; which is itself at war with the first principles of American con- 
stitutional liberty. It involves the interests, the future safety and welfare, 
of those States now deemed loyal, as well as those pronounced disloyal. It 
is the doctrine of absolutism revived in its worst form. It strikes down the 
essential principles of self-government ever held so sacred in our past 
history ; and to which all the States were indebted for their unparalleled 
career, in growth, prosperity, and greatness, so long as those principles were 
adhered to and maintained inviolate. 

" If carried out and established, its end can be nothing but centralism and 



AND WHO EESPONSIBLE. 299 

despotism. It and its fatal corollary — the policy of forcing sovereign States 
to the discharge of their assumed constitutional obligations — were fore- 
shadowed by President Lincoln in his inaugural addi-ess. 

" Now at the time of the delivery of that inaugural address it is well known 
to him, that the faithless States above alluded to, and to whose votes in the 
electoral college he was indebted for his election, had for years been in open, 
avowed, and determined violation of their constitutional obligations. This 
he well knew, and he also knew that the seceded States had withdrawn from 
the Union because of this breach of faith on the part of the abolition States, 
and other anticipated violations, more dangerous, threatened from the same 
quarter. Yet without a word of rebuke, censure, or remonstrance with 
them, for their most flagrant disloyalty to the constitution, and their disre- 
gard of their most sacred obligations under it, he then threatened and now 
wages war against us, on the ground of our disloyalty in seeking new safe- 
guards for our security, when the old ones failed. And the people of those 
very States, whose disloyal hands had severed the ties of the Union — break- 
ing one of the essential parts of the compact, have been, and are, his most 
furious myrmidons in this most wicked and unjust crusade against us, with 
the view to compel the people of these so outraged States to return to the 
discharge of their constitutional obligations ! It may be gravely doubted if 
the history of the world can furnish an instance of grosser perfidy or more 
shameful wrong. 

" But while the war is thus waged, professedly under the paradoxical pre- 
text of restoring the Union, that was a creature of consent, by force, and of 
upholding the Constitution by coercing sovereign States ; yet its real objects, 
as appears more obviously every day, are by no means so paradoxical. The 
Union under the Constitution as it was, each and every State being bound 
faithfully to perform and discharge its duties and obligations, and the central 
government confining itself within the sphere of its limited powers, is what 
the authors, projectors, and controllers of this war never wanted ; and never 
intended ; and do not now intend to maintain. 

" Whatever differences of opinion may have existed at the commencement, 
among our own people, as to the policy of secession, or the objects of the 
Federal government, all doubt has been dispelled by the abolition procla- 
mation of President Lincoln and his subsequent action. Maddened by ab- 
olition fanaticism and deadly hate for the white race of the South, he wages 
war, not for the restoration of the Union — not for the support of the Con- 
stitution — but for the abolition of slavery and the subjugation and, as he 
doubtless desires, ultimate extermination of the Anglo-Norman race in the 
Southern States. Dearly beloved by him as are the African race, his acts 
are prompted less by love of them than by Puritanic hate for the Cavaliers, 
the Huguenots, and Scotch Irish, whose blood courses freely through the 
veins of the white population of the South. But Federal bayonets can never 
reverse the laws of God, which must be done before the negro can be made 



300 CAUSES OF THE WAR, 

the equal of the white man of the South. The freedom sought for them by 
the abolition party, if achieved, would result in their return to barbarism, 
and their ultimate extermination from the soil, where most of them were 
born and were comfortable and contented, under the guardian care of the 
white race, before the wicked crusade was commenced. 

" What have been the abolition achievements of the administration ? The 
most that has been claimed by them is, that they have taken from their own- 
ers, and set free, 100,000 negroes. What has this cost the white race of the 
North and South ? More than half a million of white men slain or wrecked 
in health beyond the hope of recovery, and an expenditure of not perhaps 
less than four thousand millions of dollars. What will it cost at this rate to 
liberate nearly 4,000,000 more of slaves ? Northern accounts of the sick- 
ness, suffering and death, which have under Northern treatment carried off so 
large a portion of those set free, ought to convince the most fanatical of the 
cruel injury they are inflicting upon the poor helpless African. 

"The real objects of the war aimed at from the beginning were and are, 
not so much the deliverance of the African from bondage as the repudiation 
of the great American doctrine of self-government ; the subjugation of the 
people of these States ; and the confiscation of their property. To carry out 
their fell purpose by misleading some simple minded folks, within their own 
limits as well as ours perhaps, they passed in the House of Representatives of 
the Federal Congress a short time since the famous resolution : 

" ' That as our country and the very existence of the best government ever 
instituted by man is imperilled by the most causeless and wicked rebellion, 
that the only hope of saving the coimtry and preserving this government is 
by the power of the sword, we are for the most vigorous prosecution of the 
war, until the constitution and laws shall be enforced and obeyed in all parts 
of the United States ; and to that end we oppose any armistice, or interven- 
tion, or mediation, or proposition for peace, from any quartei", so long as 
there shall be found a rebel in arms against the government ; and we ignore 
all party names, lines and issues, and recognize but two parties to this war — 
patriots, and traitors.' 

" Were solemn mockery, perfidious baseness, unmitigated hypoci'isy, and 
malignant barbarity, ever more conspicuously combined, and presented for 
the just condemnation of a right thinking world, than they are in this reso- 
lution, passed by the abolition majority in the Lincoln Congress ? Think of 
the members from Massachusetts and Vermont voting for the most vigorous 
prosecution of the war until the Constitution and laws shall be etiforced and 
obeyed in all parts of the United States. Think of the acts of the Legisla- 
ture of Massachusetts, passed in 1843 and 1855, still standing upon her 
statute book, setting at defiance the Constitution and laws. What would be- 
come of these States ? And what would become of their members them- 
selves, who have upheld and sustained these violations of the Constitution and 
laivs, which is the chief reason why they now hold their seats, by the votes 



AND WHO RESPONSIBLE. 301 

of their constituents, if the war should be so waged ? How long would it be 
before they would grouud their arms of rebellion against the provision of 
the Constitution which they have set at naught, and give it their loyal sup- 
port? What would become of their President and his cabinet ; and all who 
from the beginning of the war, and before that time, have been trampling 
the Constitution under their feet? Were the war waged as they thus declare 
it to be their purpose to wage it, they would be the first victims of the 
sword, were it first turned, as it ought to be, against the first offenders. 
This they know full well. Obedience to the Constitution is the last thing 
they want or intend. Hence the mockery, baseness, and hypocrisy of such a 
declaration of purpose. On their part, it is a war of most wanton and sav- 
age aggression ; on ours, it is a war in defence of inalienable rights ; in de- 
fence of everything for which freemen should live ; and for which freemen 
may well be willijig to die. 

" The inestimable rights of self-government, and State sovereignty, for 
which their fathers and our fathers bled and suffered together, in the strug- 
gle with England for independence, are the same for which we are now 
engaged, in this most unnatural and sanguinary struggle with them. Those 
rights are as dear to the people of these States as they were to those who 
achieved them ; and on account of the great cost of achievement they are 
the more preciously cherished by those to whom they were bequeathed, and 
will never be surrendered or abandoned at less sacrifice. 

" If no proposition for peace or armistice is to be received, or entertained, 
so long as we hold arms in our hands, to defend ourselves, our homes, our 
hearthstones, our altars, and our birthright, against such ruthless and worse 
than Vandal invaders, be it so ! We deem it due, however, to ourselves, to 
the civilized world, and to those who shall come after us, to put upon record 
what we are fighting for ; and to let all know, who may now or hereafter feel 
an interest in knowing the real nature of this conflict, that the heavy respon- 
sibility of such suffering, desolation, and carnage, may rest where it right- 
fully belongs. 

" It is believed that many of the people of the Northern States labor 
under the impression that no propositions for peaceful adjustment have ever 
been made by us. 

" President Xifcoln, in his letter to the ' Unconditional Union ' meeting 
at Springfield last summer, stated in substance, that no proposition for 
peaceful adjustment of the matters in strife had ever been made to him by 
those who were in control of the military forces of the Confederate States, 
but if any such should be made, he would entertain and give it his consider- 
ation. 

" This was doubtless said to make the impression on the minds of those 
not well informed, that the responsibility of the war was with us. This 
declaration of President Lincoln stands in striking contrast with that above 
quoted, from the republican members of the House of Representatives. 



302 CAUSES OF THE WAR, 

" When this statement was made by President Lincoln ifc was well known 
to him that our commissioners sent to settle the whole matter in dispute, 
peaceably, were refused a hearing ! They were not even permitted to pre- 
sent their terms ! 

" This declaration was also made soon after it was well known throughout 
the Confederate States at least that a distinguished son of this State, who 
is a high functionary of the government at Richmond, had consented as 
military commissioner to bear a communication in writing from President 
Davis, the Commander-in-Chief of our armies, to President Lincoln himself, 
witU authority to confer upon matters therein set forth. This commis- 
sioner sent from the head of our armies was not granted an audience, nor 
was the communication he bore received. That communication, as was after- 
wards known, related to divers matters connected with the general conduct 
of the war. Its nature, however, or to what it referred. President Lincoln 
did not know when he refused to receive it. But from what is now known 
of it, if he had received it, and had heard what terms might have been proposed 
for the general conduct of the war, it is reasonable to conclude that the dis- 
cussion of these and kindred topics might have led to some more definite 
ideas of the aims and objects of the war on both sides, from which the ini- 
tiative of peaceful adjustment might have sprung ; unless his real purpose 
be, as it is believed to be, nothing short of the conquest and subjugation of 
these States. His announcement, that no offer of terms of adjustment had 
ever been made to him, is believed to be an artful pretext on his part to 
cover and hide from the people, over whom he is assuming such absolute 
sway, his deep designs first against our liberties, and then against theirs. 

HOW PEACE SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 

" In view of these difficulties it may be asked, when and how is this war 
to terminate? It is impossible to say when it may terminate, but it is easy 
to say how it v/ill end. We do not seek to conquer the Northern people, and 
if we are true to ourselves, they can never conquer us. We do not seek to 
take from them the right of self-government or to govern them without their 
consent ; and they have not force enough to govern us without our consent or 
to deprive us of the right to govern ourselves. The blood of hundreds of 
thousands may yet be spilt and the war will not still be terminated by force 
of arms. Negotiation will finally terminate it. The pen of the statesman, 
more potent than the sword of the warrior, must do what the latter has failed 
to do. 

" But I may be asked how negotiations are to commence when President 
Lincoln refuses to receive commissioners sent by us, and his Congress re- 
solves to hear no proposition for peace ? I reply, that in my opinio-n it is 
our duty to keep it always before the Northern people and the civilized 
world, that we are ready to negotiate for peace whenever the people and 
government of the Northern States are prepared to recognize the great fun- 



AND WHO EESPONSIBLE. 303 

damental principles of the Declaration of Independence, maintained by our 
common ancestry — the right of all self-government and the sovereignty of the 
States. In my judgment it is the duty of our government, after each im- 
portant victory achieved by our gallant and glorious armies on the battle- 
field, to make a distinct proposition to the Northern government for peace 
upon these terms. By doing this, if the proposition is declined by them, we 
will hold them up constantly in the wrong before their own people and the 
judgment of mankind. If they refuse to receive the commissioners who bear 
the proposition, publish it in the newspapei's, and let the conduct of their 
rulers be known to the people ; and there is reasonable ground to hope that 
the time may not be far distant when a returning sense of justice, and a de- 
sire for self-protection against despotism at home, will prompt the people of 
the Northern States to hurl from power those who deny the fundamental 
principle upon which their own liberties rest, and who can never be satiated 
with human blood. Let us stand on no delicate point of etiquette or diplo- 
matic ceremony. If the proposition is rejected a dozen times, let us tender 
it again after the next victory — that the world may be reassured from month 
to month that we are not responsible for the continuance of this devastation 
and carnage. 

" Let it be repeated again and again to the Northern people that all we ask 
is that they recognize the great principle upon which their own government 
rests — the sovereignty of the States: and let our own people hold our own gov- 
ernment to a strict account for every encroachment upon this vital principle. 

" Herein lies the simple solution of all these troubles. 

*' If there be any doubt or any question of doubt as to the sovereign will 
of any one of all the States of this Confederacy, or of any border State whose 
institutions are similar to ours not in the Confederacy, upon the subject of 
their present or future alliance, let all armed force be withdrawn, and let 
that sovereign will be fairly expressed at the ballot-box by the legal voters of 
the State, and let all parties abide by the decision. 

" Let each State have and freely exercise the right to determine its own 
destiny in its own way. This is all that we have been struggling for from 
the beginning. It is a principle that secures ' rights inestimable to freemen 
and formidable to tyrants only.' 

" Let both governments adopt this mode of settlement, which was be- 
queathed to them by the great men of the Revolution, and which has since 
been adopted by the Emperor Napoleon, as the only just mode for the gov- 
ernment of States or even provinces ; and the ballot-box will soon acliieve 
what the sword cannot accomplish — restore peace to the country and uphold 
the great doctrines of State sovereignty and Constitutional liberty. 

" If it is a question of strife whether Kentucky or Maryland or any other 
State shall cast her lot with the United States or the Confederate States; 
there is no mode of settling it so justly, with so little cost, and with so much 
satisfaction to her own people, as to withdraw all military force from her 



304 CAUSES OF THE WAR, 

limits and leave the decision, not to the sword, but to the ballot-box. If she 
should decide for herself to abolish slavery and go with the North, the Con- 
federate government can have no just cause of complaint, for that govern- 
ment had its origin in the doctrine that all its just 'powers are derived from 
the consent of the governed,' and we have no right to insist on governing a 
sovereign State against her will. But if she should decide to retain her in- 
stitutions and go with the South, as we doubt not she will when the question 
is fairly submitted to her people at the polls, the Lincoln government must 
acquiesce, or it must repudiate and trample upon the very essential principles 
on which it was founded, and which were carried out in practice by the 
fathers of the Republic for the first half century of its existence. 

"What Southern man can object to this mode of settlement? It is all 
that South Carolina, Virginia, or Georgia claimed when she seceded from 
the Union. It is all that either has at any time claimed, and all that either 
ever can justly claim. And what friend of Southern independence fears the 
result? What has the abolition government done to cause the people of 
any Southern State to desire to reverse her decision and return ingloriously 
to its embrace ? Are we afraid the people of any seceded State will desire 
to place the State back in the abolition union, under the Lincoln despotism, 
after it has devastated their fields, laid waste their country, burned their 
cities, slaughtered their sons, and degraded their daughters ? There is no 
reason for such fear. 

"But I may be told that Mr. Lincoln has repudiated this principle in ad- 
vance, and that it is idle again to tender a settlement upon these terms. 
This is no reason why we should withhold the repeated renewal of the prop- 
osition. Let it be made again and again, till the mass of the Northern peo- 
ple understand it : and Mr. Lincoln cannot continue to stand before them 
and the world, stained with the blood of their sons, their husbands, and their 
fathers, and insist, when a proposition so fair is constantly tendered, that 
thousands of new victims shall still continue to bleed, to gratify his abolition 
fanaticism, satisfy his revenge, and serve his ambition to govern these 
States, upon the decision of one tenth of the people in his favor, against the 
other nine tenths. Let the Northern and Southern toind be brought to con- 
template this subject in all its magnitude ; and while there may be extreme 
men on the Northern side, satisfied with nothing less than the subjugation 
of the South and the confiscation of our property, and like extremists on 
the Southern side, whose morbid sensibilities are shocked at the mention of 
negotiation, or the renewal of an offer by us for a settlement upon any terms ; 
I cannot doubt that the cool-headed thinking men on both sides of the line, 
who are devoted to the great principles of self-government, and State sover- 
eignty, including the scar-covered veterans of the army, will finally settle 
down upon this as the true solution of the great problem, which now em- 
barrasses so many millions of people, and will find the higher truth between 
the two extremes. 



AND WHO EESPONSIBLE. 305 

" If, upon the sober second thought, the public sentiment North sustains 
the policy of Mr. Lincoln, when he proposes by the power of the sword to 
place the great doctrines of the Declaration of Independence and the Con- 
stitution of his country under his feet, and proclaims his purpose to govern' 
these States by military power when he shall have obtained the consent of 
one tenth of the governed ; how can the same public sentiment condemn him, 
if at the head of his vast armies he shall proclaim himself Emperor of the 
whole country, and submit the question to the vote of the Northern people, 
and when he has obtained, as he could easily do, the vote of one tenth in his 
favor, he shall insist on his right to govern them as their legitimate sover- 
eign ? If he is right in principle in the one case, he would unquestionably 
be right in the other. If he may rightfully continue the war against the 
South to sustain the one, why may he not as rightfully turn his armies 
against the North to establish the other ? 

" But the timid among us may say, how are we to meet and repel his armies, 
if Mr. Lincoln shall continue to reject these terms and shall be sustained by 
the sentiment of the North ? as he claims not only the right to govern us, 
but he claims the right to take from us all that we have. 

" The answer is plain. Let every man do his duty ; and let us as a people 
place our trust in God and we shall certainly repel his assaults and achieve 
our independence, and if true to ourselves and to posterity we shall main- 
tain our Constitutional liberty also. The achievement of our independence 
is a great object; but not greater than the preservation of Constitutional 
liberty. 

" The good man cannot read the late proclamation of Mr. Lincoln without 
being struck with the resemblance between it and a similar one issued, 
several thousand years ago, by Ben-hadad, king of Syria. That wicked 
king denied in others the right of self-government; and vaunting himself in 
numbers, and putting his trust in chariots and horses, he invaded Israel, and 
besieged Samaria with an overwhelming force. When the king of Israel, 
with a small band, resisted his entrance into the city, the Syrian King sent 
him this message : ' Thou shalt deliver me thy silver and thy gold, and thy 
wives, and thy children ; yet I will send my servants unto tiiee to-morrow, 
about this time, and they shall search thy house, and the houses of thy serv- 
ants ; and it shall be, that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes they shall 
put in their hands and take it away.' The king of Israel consulted the 
elders, after receiving this arrogant message, and replied : ' This thing I 
may not do.' Ben-hadad enraged at this reply, and confident of his strength, 
sent back and said : 

'• ' The Gods do so to me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice, 
for handfuls, for all the people that follow me.' The king of Israel answered 
and said : ' Tell him, let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself 
as he that putteth it off.' 

" The result was, that the small band of Israelites, guided by Jehovah, 
20 



306 SHERMAN'S INVASION. 

attacked the Syrian armies, and routed them with great slaughter, and upon 
a second trial of strength the Syrian armies were destroyed and their king 
made captive. 

" When Mr. Lincoln, following the example of this wicked king, and relying 
upon his chariots, and his horsemen, and his vast armies, to sustain a cause 
equally unjust, proclaims to us, that aU we have is his, and that he will send 
his servants, whose numbers are overwhelming, with arms in their hands to 
take it, and threatens vengeance if we resist, let us — ■' Tell him, let not him 
that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.' ' The race 
is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.' ' God is the judge, he put- 
teth down one and setteth up another.' 

" Not doubting the justice of our cause, let us stand in our allotted places, 
and in the name of Him who rules the hosts of Heaven and the armies of 
Earth, let us continue to strike for liberty and independence, and our efforts 
will ultimately be crowned with triumphant success. 

"Joseph E. Brown." 

On the 17th November, 1864, Governor Brown sent 

the following message to the Legislature, to which that 

body, representing the public spirit of this State, promptly 

responded by the passage of the act called for, and by 

placing the whole white population of the State able to do 

military duty, between 16. and 55 years of age, subject to 

his orders : — 

"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ^ 

MiLLEDGEVILLE, NoV. 7, 186i. ) 

" To the General Assembly : 

" I have received what I consider reliable information, that the enemy 
has burnt and laid waste a large part of Atlanta, and of several other towns 
in tipper Georgia, and has destroyed the State Road back to Allatoona, and 
burnt the railroad bridge over the Chattahoochee River, and is now advanc- 
ing in heavy force in the direction of Macon, and probably of this city, lay- 
ing waste the country and towns in the line of his march. 

" The emergency requires prompt, energetic action. If the whole man- 
hood of the State will rally to the front, we can check his march and capture 
or destroy his force. There are now in the State, large numbers of men not 
under arms in either State or Confederate service. The class of State officers 
not subject to militia duty, such as judges, justices of the inferior courts, 
sheriffs, etc , will amount to a fine regiment. 

''Tl)ere are numerous others with Confederate details, not connected with 
the present active operations of the front, probably amounting to several 
regiments. All these, and every other person in the State able to bear 



APPEOPRIATION FOR DEFENCE. 307 

arms, no matter what his position may be, should rally to the standard in 
the field, till the emergency is passed. 

" The present militia laws are not adequate to the occasion, and I respect- 
fully ask the passage of a law, with the least possible delay, authorizing the 
Governor to make a levy en masne of the whole male population, including 
every man able to do military duty, during the emergency, and to accept, for 
such length of time as may be agreed upon, the services of any companies, 
battalions, regiments, brigades, or divisions of volunteers which may tender 
their services, with any number of men which he may consider effective. 
Plenary power should be given to compel all to report who fail or refuse to 
do so. 

" I respectfully suggest that the appropriation bill be taken up and passed 
without delay, and that a military bill of the character indicated be also 
passed, and that the Governor and Legislature then adjourn to the front, to 
aid in the struggle till the enemy is repulsed, and to meet again if we should 
live at such place as the Govei-nor may designate. 

" Joseph E. Brown." 

On the same day the Legislature passed an act ap- 
propriating $500,000 for the Georgia Relief and Hospital 
Association; $6,000,000 for indigent widows, orphans, 
and soldiers' families of Georgia, and disabled soldiers ; 
$800,000 to purchase corn for bread for counties over- 
run by the Federal army; $1,200,000 to pay any part 
of the public debt to become due in 1865 ; $ 1,000,000 as 
a military fund for the State ; $1,500,000 to be used in 
exporting cotton and other produce to pay for clothing, 
blankets, and other necessaries for Georgia troops, and 
for the purpose of accumulating exchange in Europe, to 
pay the interest on the sterling debt of the State, and to 
meet the demands of the State for railroad supplies, and 
authorized the issue of treasury notes to meet these) 
sums, all of which were placed by the act under the con- 
trol of the Governor. All these appropriations resulted 
from the powerful and urgent appeals of the Executive 
in his messages. 

The military fund, and that for the relief of the in- 
digent, and of soldiers' families, were largely increased at 



308 GEORGIA'S LOSSES IN THE WAE. 

the extra session in March, 1865, held at Macon. And 
the Quartermaster-General of the State was authorized 
to issue clothing, shoes, hats, and blankets to all Georgia 
soldiers in service. 

As we have seen, the irregular manner of raising troops 
effectuallj prevented the estimate of their number as 
well as the commands in which the Georgians served. 
It is also not now practical to report the number of those 
who died of sickness and accidents, and from wounds in 
battle, or the number of the manned or disabled. It will 
never be pretended bj any candid and well-informed 
person that this State suffered less than any one of her 
sisters in proportion to population, or that on the battle- 
fields they were less gallant, in camp and on the march 
less orderly and obedient, or in the times of trial, hardship, 
or affliction, less patient and enduring and uncomplaining. 
Her voting population at the beginning was 101,505 ; she 
sent a larger number than this to the field; of course ma ly 
entered the service who were not voters. The confusion 
that followed the downfall of the Confederacy prevented 
any means of knowing the excess of loss by death ov iic 
those coming to manhood within the four years of war. 

This State sent her men, and offered her material re- 
sources on the altar of the Confederacy. In 1861 her 
property was valued at $672,731,901. In 1868, the 
earliest period at which official reports are had, it was 
valued at $191,235,520 ; a loss had thus accrued in prop- 
erty of $481,497,381 ; when to this we add the loss by 
repudiated securities contracted during the war under 
Federal dictation, the sum of $18,135,775, and the untold 
amount of Confederate paper that became worthless, we 
approximate the material loss of this great State by the 
war and its results. 



CONFLICT WITH THE CONFEDERACY. 309 

In March, 1864, Governor Brown in his message to the 
Legislature thus speaks of the matter of 

CONFLICT WITH THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT. 

" But it may be said that an attempt to maintain the rights of the State 
will produce conflict with the Confederate Government. I am aware that 
there are those who, from motives not necessary to be here mentioned, are 
ever ready to raise the cry of conflict, and to criticise and condemn the action 
of Georgia in every case where her constituted authorities protest against 
the encroachments of the central power, and seek to maintain her dignity 
and sovereignty as a State, and the constitutional rights and liberties of her 
people. 

" Those who are unfriendly to State sovereignty and desire to consolidate 
all power in the hands of the Confederate Government, hoping to promote 
their undertaking by operating upon the fears of the timid, after each new 
aggression upon the constitutional rights of the States, fill the newspaper 
presses with the cry of conflict, and warn the people to beware of those who 
seek to maintain their constitutional rights as agitators or partisans who may 
embarrass the Confederate Government in the prosecution of the war. 

" Let not the people be deceived by this false clamor. It is the same cry 
of conflict which the Lincoln Government raised against all who defended the 
rights of the Southern States against its tyranny. It is the cry which the 
usurpers of power have ever raised against those who rebuke their encroach- 
ments and refuse to yield to their aggressions. 

" When did Georgia embarrass the Confederate Government in any matter 
pertaining to the vigorous prosecution of the war? When did she fail to 
furnish more than her full quota of troops, when she was called upon as a 
State by the proper Confederate authority ? And when did her gallant sons 
ever quail before the enemy, or fail nobly to illustrate her character upon the 
battle-field ? 

" She can not only repel the attacks of her enemies on the field of deadly 
conflict, but she can as proudly repel the assaults of those who, ready to 
bend the knee to power for position and patronage, set themselves up to criti- 
cise her conduct, and she can confidently challenge them to point to a single 
instance in which she has failed to fill a requisition for troops made upon her 
through the regular constitutional channel. To the very last requisition 
made she responded with over double the number required. 

" She stands ready at all times to do her whole duty to the cause and to 
the Confederacy ; but while she does this, she will never cease to require that 
her constitutional rights be respected and the liberties of her people pre- 
served. While she deprecates all conflict with the Confederate Government, 
if to require these be conflict, the conflict will never end till the object is 
attained. 



310 BEOWN TRUE TO THE CONFEDERACY. 

Tor Freedom's battle once begun, 
Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son, 
Though baffled oft is ever won,' 

will be emblazoned in letters of living light upon her proud banners, until 
State sovereignty and constitutional liberty, as well as Confederate independ- 
ence, are firmly established." 

When his own State was invaded and overrun by the 
Federal troops, under the victorious Sherman in his 
march to the sea, and when the backbone of the Confed- 
eracy was virtually broken, and the circulation of its life 
blood impeded, the pulse beating low and extremities in 
great part paralyzed and growing cold, and the people 
who had sustained the Governor from the beginning of 
the struggle w^ere desponding and almost bereft of a ves- 
tige of hope, there was an incident which puts forever 
in the form of detraction, the pretended implication or 
charge that Brown was not to the last true to the Con- 
federacy and the common cause of independence. 

General Sherman made overture to him as Governor 
of this State for the peace of the State, and through Mr. 
William King invited him to a conference with a view to 
this consummation. We are not now treating of the mo- 
tives of the commanding Federal general, but with the 
purposes and aims of Governor Brow^n, who had the 
opportunity to save himself and the State from farther 
devastation and ruin, by abandoning his confederates in 
the struggle, and acting on the line of policy then ascribed 
to him, not by his friends or an impartial public, but by 
his foes at home and in his own country. 

Brown sent back to General Sherman the only reply 
that he could have made without falsifying his past record, 
his principles of public and private honor, and every 
emotion and sentiment of his patriotic heart : — 



BROWN TRUE TO THE CONFEDERACY. 311 

" Say to General Sherman that Georgia has entered in- 
to a confederation with her Southern sisters for the main- 
tenance of the same sovereignty of each, severally, which 
she claims for herself, and her public faith thus pledged 
shall never be violated by me. Come weal or come woe, 
the State of Georgia shall never, by my consent, withdraw 
from the confederation in dishonor. She will never make 
separate terms with the enemy which may free her terri- 
tory from invasion and leave her confederates in the lurch." 

Such was the decisive action of a man in high official 
station charged with the honor of his people, after the 
advancing and overwhelming forces of the public enemy 
had to a great extent placed it beyond himself and his 
confederates to save the State from widespread ruin. 

After the surrender of the Confederate armies, and not i 
before, Governor Brown surrendered to the Federal Gen- \ 
eral Wilson, commanding in this State, and accepted from l 
him his parol and retired to the mansion at Milledgeville. 
His parol was soon after violated by an actual arrest at 
his own home by Federal soldiers and taken from him. 
He was hurried away to Washington City and imprisoned 
by armed force without delay, without the privilege of 
conferring with his family and against his earnest protest 
and claim of personal liberty on his parol from the Federal 
commander. 

He was afterwards released by President Johnson and 
allowed to return home, where the State was under entire 
military occupation, and when he was divested of all mil- 
itary power and prevented by armed force from exercis- 
ing any civil authority in the State ; and therefore he 
resigned the office that had been by overpowering force 
wrenched from him ; and the cause of independence for 
which he had so long struggled, and the hope of Constitu- 



312 FLIGHT FEOM MILLEDGEVILLE. 

tional liberty as he had understood it in the nature and 
history of the Government and the express terms of the 
Federal Constitution ; retired to the pursuit of private 
business, as did the civil officers of the State, as well as 
the surviving officers and soldiers of the Confederate 
armies. 

Flight from Milledgeville. 

The approach of the Federal army to the State Capital 
while the Legislature was in session produced a panic and 
a stampede of that body and caused the sudden and hasty 
departure of the State officials, including the Governor, 
his family, and staff. The enemies of Governor Brown 
were busy in circulating reports to damage him in the 
estimation of the people. It was charged against him, 
after his four years of labor and unremitted efforts in the 
cause of liberty and independence, that he proved to be 
selfish in this emergency, even in the small matter of 
taking care of his private effects to the neglect of those 
of the State, which might have been saved, but which he 
left to fall into the hands of the enemy. The late Gen. 
Eichard Taylor, brother-in-law to President Davis, and 
holding high military rank under him, having referred to 
this criticism in his book entitled " Destruction and Re- 
construction," has given it sufficient importance to call 
for the publication of the facts and truths of the removal 
from Milledgeville. 

To this end the author has solicited a statement from 
Gen. Ira R. Foster, the laborious, efficient, and indefatiga- 
ble Quartermaster-General of the State during the entire 
war; which statement, descriptive of the situation and 
showing the criticism referred to to be without merit, is 
here given : — 



FLIGHT FROM MILLEDGEVILLE. 313 

CuTHBERT, Ga., December 19, 1880. 
« GEN. IRA R. FOSTER, Warrenton, Ala. 

"^ir : — In the late Gen. Richard Taylor's book entitled ' Destruction and 
Reconstruction,' purporting to be his ' personal experiences in the late war,' 
describing his visit to Georgia and the confusion produced by General Sher- 
man's march through the State, refererjce is made to a criticism upon Ex- 
Governor Brown, then attributed to his enemies, to the effect that, in leaving 
the capitol with his family, he disregarded the State's property in order to 
take care of his own effects ; that he even brought off his ' cow and cabbages.' 
He also refers in terms calculated to disparage the State troops. These 
matters derive importance from the higli character of the gifted author, thus 
putting them in permanent print. I call your attention to them as the 
Quartermaster- General of the State, and ask a statement that will present 
the facts and truths as they were in that exciting period, in order to do 
justice to this State represented by her Executive. 

" Respectfully your obt. servant and friend, 

" Herbert Fielder." 

Warrenton, Ala., January 30, 1880. 
" HON. HERBERT FIELDER : 

" Dear Sir-.—l have received your letter of the 19th ult., calling my atten- 
tion to the rumors that were circulated at the time of General Sherman's 
advance to the sea by way of Milledgeville, to the eifect that Governor 
Brown in leaving the capitol with his family to escape the Federal troops, 
disregarded the State's property in order to take care of his own, bringing 
away his ' cow and cabbages.' 

"In answer to your request for my statement in regard thereto, I have to 
say — I often heard these reports, and knowing them to be untrue I as often 
positively contradicted them. I was there in person, and as Quartermaster- 
General of the State had immediate and entire supervision of the work ; I 
have never seen more interest and anxiety manifested, or greater efforts 
made to accomplish any object than was shown both by Governor Brown 
and his wife in their endeavors to secure that property from the rava;:es of 
the opposing army. 

" It is well known that Governor Brown owned no property in Milledgeville 
at the time, and that he had no private interest to care for and protect ex- 
cept his wife and children, a span of horses and carriage, a fine cow presented 
to his wife by a friend. These were removed only in time to save capture 
by the Federal troops. 

" I feel it to be my duty to give a short history of some of the scenes at 
Milledgeville shortly after it was made known there that General Sherman 
with his army had left Atlanta, and was on his way to the sea. 

" The Legislature was in session, Governor Brown and family were occupy- 
ing the Executive Mansion, and the city was thronged with visitors. When 



314 PLIGHT FROM MILLEDGEVILLE. 

hearing of the movements of the enemy the whole people became excited, 
reaching almost to a panic. In the afternoon of that day the Legislature 
promptly adjourned, the members sought their respective homes as best they 
could, some taking passage on railroad trains, others in carriages and on 
horseback, thereby draining the city and vicinity of wagon transportation. 

"Immediately after being assured of the enemy's advance. Governor Brown 
issued orders to me, as Qaartermaster-General of the State, to secure and 
protect as best I could the most valuable of the State's perishable property 
in and around the seat of government. I at once took in the situation, and 
was assured that nothing short of Herculean efforts could handle the vast 
quantity of goods and chattels at the State House, Executive Mansion, Peni- 
tentiary, Armory, Arsenal, and in the quartermaster's and commissariat's 
store-houses, in so short a time, with my limited facilities of transportation, 

" Upon consideration Governor Brown and myself agreed that the Lunatic 
Asylum afforded the safest and in many respects the most appropriate de- 
pository for our immense stores. 

" I, having only two or three wagons and teams at that place, immediately 
put them, with all others I could command from the citizens by hire, im- 
pressment, or otherwise, to removing the property to that place, taking the 
most valuable first. I continued to do so with ail possible rapidity for several 
hours, until I became convinced that from the long distance to travel it 
would be utterly impossible with my limited means to remove all the goods 
to the asylum in the time allotted me, and so reported to Governor Brown. 
Upon further consultation we concluded it would be safer and a wiser policy 
as well as more expeditious, to haul the goods to and load them on cars (the 
railroad depot being much nearer than the asylum), keep the cars ready to 
move on short notice, and to remove them to southwest Georgia. We then 
had an engine and several cars at the depot, and others were ordered and 
supplied immediately. The removal to and loading on the cai's was com- 
menced and continued day and night with all the energy and rapidity possible 
for man to use. 

" Very soon after I began hauling goods to the depot I discovered that, from 
the shortness of the distance to that place, it required more men to load and 
unload the wagons in order to keep the teams rapidly moving, and so reported 
to Governor Brown, assuring him that the deficiency could not be supplied 
for either love or money. Whereupon he informed me the requisite number 
could be furnished in a few minutes, as he was then preparing pardons for 
most of the penitentiary convicts, who would be properly equipped and put 
in the field under General Wayne as soon as I could dispense with their 
service. But the remainder of the convicts, about ten or a dozen, composed 
of life -time prisoners and the most noted desperadoes, would be sent 
to lower Georgia under heavy guard, as he did not think it prudent to 
leave any within the walls of the penitentiary to be released by General 
Sherman and turned loose against us. In a short time, therefore, a large 



FLIGHT FROM MILLEDGEVILLE. 315 

number of ex-convicts headed by the noted Doctor Roberts reported for duty, 
and by their timely and efficient aid we were enabled to accomplish our great 
undertaking. 

" The removal of the property in and around the Executive Mansion was 
the last in order. Looking around to ascertain what should be taken away, 
I discovered a luxuriant lot of collards in the garden ; and without the 
knowledge of Governor Brown or his wife I ordered Aunt Celia, an old colored 
cook, to cut and bring them to where the wagons were being loaded. I de- 
signed to have the last cabbage cut and put on the train if time would per- 
mit, knowing the Governor's family would need part of them while refugee- 
ing from place to place, and in part lor the use of my own family then 
camped on the line of railroad at Dawson, whither they had gone after fleeing 
from Atlanta before General Sherman's fierce march. But not for Governor 
Brown's and my own family alone did I wish to save and bring away the 
cabbages. The greater part of them I desired and hoped to give to the 
several hundred poor, homeless, destitute exiles, consisting of the widows 
and orphans of slain Georgia soldiers ; families of brave ones still at the 
front, aged men and women, and not a f(!w of our noble sons who had long 
before volunteered and gone forth in the cause of the South and, after much 
suffering and many hard battles, had returned diseased, maimed, and help- 
less, to the care and protection of those for whom they had fought, had been 
driven from their homes in Atlanta and vicinity by order of Geuei-al Sher- 
man and left on line of railroad to Macon and below there, and who had 
been gathered up and taken to a place of refuge near Dawson. 

" There, by order of Governor Brown, I had erected about one hundred 
cabins in which they were sheltered, protected, and fed at the expense of the 
State, under the immediate supervision of Milton A. Candler, who did his 
whole duty in their behalf. 

"I also discovered on the premises the fine milch cow alluded to, and ad- 
vised Mrs. Brown to have her shipped on a stock car, as she would be of 
great service to her children, and as by leaving her she would be stolen or 
slaughtered by the Federal soldiers. Mrs. Brown assented and the cow was 
driven to the train and placed on the car. 

" As we were loading the last wagons with furniture we received a dispatch 
that the enemy's cavalry were making rapid advances toward the Central 
railroad between Macon and Milledgeville ; and this reminded us to be up 
and off lest our entire train might be captured and we made prisoners of 
war. The loading of the wagons was about completed when I discovered 
the small pile of cabbages cut by Celia lying in the yard and had them 
thrown on top of the furniture, leaving at least nine tenths in the garden 
uncut. The wagons oS"in double-quick time and with wonderful dispatch 
unloaded on cars ; steam being up we left immediately and made the trip 
to Macon in perhaps shorter time than any engine had ever done before. 

" On reaching Macon, where a portion of the State troops were stationed, we 



316 FLIGHT FROM MILLEDGEVILLE. 

found that our fears had been well founded, as the Federal cavalry had 
reached and cut the railroad at or near GriswoldvHle, a point over which we 
had passed only a few minutes before. 

" That eveninj^j or the next morning our train with Governor Brown and 
his family went down to Montezuma on the Southwestern railroad, and 
stopped on a sideling, and while there at dinner, at Mrs. Brown's table on 
board the cars, I remarked to her that she ought to have had some of our 
Milledgeville greens cooked for dinner. Until then I have no idea that she, 
the Governor, or any member of the family knew they were on board the 
cars. They had all left the mansion before the last loads of furniture were 
taken to the train. Even Aunt Celia did not know that those cut and piled 
in the yard had been brought away. Such is the origin and history of the 
cow and cabbage story. 

"You allude in your letter to the work of General Taylor, and to another 
criticism it contains upon the Georgia State troops, and the policy he attrib- 
utes to Governor Brown of keeping them within the State under all cir- 
cumstances ; and in which he refers to the fact of their having been outside 
the State, in South Carolina near Savannah, as a clever trick practised on 
them by General Toombs when they did not know where they were going, 
and done without the authority of Governor Brown. 

"This, within my personal knowledge, does great injustice to the gallant 
troops who were at that time in the State service, and who distinguished 
themselves on every battle-field from the time they entered the service until 
the end of the struggle. It also does injustice to that able general, Gustavus 
W. Smith, who was in command of the State troops. 

" After General Sherman had passed Macon on his march to the sea, I heard 
a conversation between Governor Brown and General Smith in reference to 
the use of the State troops beyond the limits of the State, in which the Gov- 
ernor instructed General Smith in emphatic terms to use the troops to the 
very best of his ability to annoy and cripple General Sherman's army during 
their march through the State. The Governor was asked by General Smith 
during the interview whether, if within his opinion the public interest and 
good of the cause required it, he should carry the State troops beyond the 
limits of the State, or whether he should confine himself within its bound- 
aries. To which the Governor replied with great emphasis, ' Cripple the 
enemy all you can in the State. But if you see where any advantage can be 
gained, or where the common cause can be served by carrying them into 
South Carolina, or to any point beyond the limits of the State, do not hesi- 
tate a moment, but act promptly, and do all you can for Georgia and the 
Confederacy.' 

" At that time General Wayne's brigade was in front of General Sherman 
between Macon and Savannah, doing all they could to guard the bridges on 
the Central railroad. And the body of the State militia were at Macon, where 
they remained in the trenches for the protection of the city until Sherman's 



FLIGHT FROM MILLEDGEVILLE. 317 

army had passed. They were then thrown rapidly by rail into Sherman's 
front near Savannah, and, as is well known to the country, were carried by 
General Smith across the Savannah river into South Carolina, where they 
fought a gallant battle and defeated the Federal general in command with 
heavy losses. They were then brought back to Savannah, and did all they 
could for the fortification of that city. When Sherman's army beleaguered 
the city, they were, as I am well informed, carried across on a pontoon bridge 
into South Carolina, and did all they could to annoy the enemy in that State 
up to about the time of the surrender. I am informed on the most re- 
liable authority that there was no drawing back or murmuring on the part 
of the State troops when the order came to march across the river into South 
Carolina. But that they moved forward gallantly and cheerfully to dis- 
charge that important duty as they had hitherto done in every instance when 
duty called. Yours respectfully, 

" Ira R. Foster." 



CHAPTER X. 

Correspondence of Governor Brown and James A. 
Seddon, Secretary of War, 1864. 

Upon the invasion of Georgia and the approach of 
overwhehning forces, under command of General Sher- 
man, to the city of Atlanta, Governor Brown called out 
the State militia, the boys down to the age of sixteen 
and old men up to fifty-five years of age, and the State 
officials — some of whom had been elected or appointed 
after being discharged for disability in the Confederate 
service, and others who had held civil office and had not 
been in the army. This force, such as elsewhere were 
non-combatants, in Georgia, under her Governor, was 
called to the post of imminent danger and hardship, and 
responded with great promptness. It amounted to about 
ten thousand men, organized in companies and regiments, 
choosing their own officers by election. They were under 
Major-General Gustavus W. Smith, with General Robert 
Toombs as chief of staff, both of whom, having held com- 
mands in the Confederate army, had resigned, and ac- 
cepted commands of the State militia. But all under the 
command, for the emergency that called them out, of the 
Confederate General Johnston, until his removal, and 
afterward of General Hood— doing noble and gallant ser- 
vice, suffering great losses and hardships. 

President Davis, with all the volunteer forces — inde- 
pendent commands — of this State, all the requisitions 
previously made more than filled, and all the arms-bear- 



CORRESPONDENCE. 319 

ing men liable to conscription under Confederate laws, 
except the civil and militia officers already in service, 
made through Mr. Seddon, Secretary of War, a requisi- 
tion upon Governor Brown for these troops to be turned 
over to the Confederate Government. The correspond- 
ence that ensued is pertinent and full of interest upon 
the subject of Georgia and the Confederacy. Hence we 
give it entire : — 

CORRESPONDE^^CE. 

" CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, ) 

War Department. > 

Richmond, Va., August 30, 1864. ) 

"HIS EXCELLE^^Cr J. E. BROW.V, 

"Governor of Georgia, 

" Milledgeville, Georgia. 
" Sir: — The condition of your State, subjected to formidable invasion and 
menaced with destructive raids in different directions by the enemy, requires 
the command of all the forces that can be summoned for defence. From recent 
official correspondence submitted to the Department, it appears, on your state- 
ment, that you have organized ten thousand or more of the militia of your 
State, and I am instructed by the President to make requisition on you for 
that number, and such further force of militia, to repel invasion, as you may 
be able to organize, for Confederate service. Those within the limits of 
General Hood's Department will report to him ; those outside, to the Com- 
mandant of the Department of South Carolina and Georgia. 
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" James A. Seddon, 

" Secretary of War." 

" EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 
Milledgeville, Ga., September 12, 1864. j 

"HON. JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War. 

"5tV;— Your letter of the 30th of last month only reached me by last 
mail. 

"You refer to the fact that I have organized ten thousand of the militia 
of this State, and say you are instructed by the President to make requisition 
upon me for that number and such other force of militia to repel invasion as 
I may be able to organize. 

"You preface this requisition by the remark that the condition of my 



320 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

State, subjected to formidable invasion and menaced with destructive raids 
in different directions by the enemy, requires the command of all the forces 
that can be summoned for defence. 

" In common with the people of Georgift, I have abundant reason to regret 
that the President has been so late in making this discovery. This ' formid- 
able invasion ' commenced in May last, and has steadily forced its way, by 
reason of overwhelming numbers, through the most fertile section of Georgia, 
till its leader is now in possession of the city of Atlanta, menacing the 
centre of the State, threatening by his winter campaign to cut the last line 
of railroad that connects Virginia and the Carolinas with Alabama and Mis- 
sissippi. The President, during most of the time since the campaign against 
Atlanta began, has had at his command a large force, said to number some 
30,000 men, in Texas and Louisiana. Since the brilliant victories achieved 
by our armies in the latter State early in the season, this large force has had 
no enemy to confront, except the troops of a few garrisons, who were in no 
condition to penetrate the interior of the country or do any serious damage. 
lie has also, if correctly reported, had about 20,000 men under General Early 
invading Maryland and Pennsylvania, thereby uniting Northern sentiment 
against us and aiding President Lincoln to rally his people to reinforce his 
armies. About the same time General Morgan was raiding in Kentucky, 
and General Forrest, the great cavalry leader, has been kept in Northern Mis- 
sissippi to repel raids after the country had been so often overrun as to leave 
but little public property for them to destroy. 

"Thus, reversing the rule upon which most great generals who have been 
successful have acted, of rapid concentration of his forces at vital points to 
destroy the invading army, the President has scattered his forces from Texas 
to Pennsylvania while a severe blow was being struck at the heart of the 
Confederacy; and Atlanta has been sacrificed and the interior of Georgia 
thrown open to further invasion for want of reinforcements to the army of 
Tennessee. Probably few intelligent men in the country, except the Presi- 
dent and his advisers, have failed to see that if Generals Forrest and Morgan 
had been sent to destroy the raih-oads over which General Sherman's sup- 
plies have been transported for three hundred miles through an enemy's 
country, and to keep the roads cut for a few weeks, and at the same time the 
forces of General E. Kirby Smith and Major-General Early, or even half of 
them, had been sent to reinforce General Johnston, or, after he was super- 
seded. General Hood, the army of invasion might not only have been re- 
pulsed and driven back, but routed and destroyed. 

" This would instantly have relieved Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Ten- 
nessee from invasion and raids, and have thrown open the green fields of Ken- 
tucky for the support of our gallant troops. As the army of General Sher- 
man is the only protection provided by the Lincoln government for the 
Western States, and as the battle for the possession of a large portion of the 
Mississippi Valley, as well as of the Gulf States, was to be fought in Geor- 



AND THE SECKETARY OF WAR. 321 

gia-, justice, not only to the people of Georgia, but the people of all the States, 
required that all the troops which were not actually necessary to the defence 
of Richmond, and to hold the enemy in check at the most vital poiuts on the 
coast, should have been concentrated for the destruction of the Federal army 
in Georgia, which would, in all probability, have brought the war to a speedy 
termination. 

" I have begged the President to send reinforcements to the army for the 
defence of Atlanta ever since the enemy were at Etowah. But a very small 
number have been sent, and, if I am correctly informed, part of the troops un- 
der General Hood's command have been ordered from this to other States. 

" While we have been sorely pressed by the enemy, a camp of 30,000 Federal 
prisoners has been kept in the rear of our army, which has added greatly to 
our embarrassments, and has it seems required all the small force of Confed- 
erate reserves, organized by Major-General Cobb, with other occasional re- 
inforcements, to guard them. The reserve force organized under the late 
Conscript Act for the State defence has been thus employed, I presume, by 
order of the President, and in the hour of her peril Georgia has not had a single 
one of them at the front with a musket in his hand to aid in her defence. Had 
the militia been at his command for such service as he might have ordered, 
and at such place as he might designate, the presumption is that the same re- 
mark might have been applicable to them, as other employment could, as in 
case of the local companies under the President's command, have been found 
for them at other places while the enemy were besieging Atlanta. 

" Another remarkable fact deserves attention. During the whole march of 
the enemy upon Atlanta, and for more tlian a month after it was closely in- 
vested and shelled by the enemy, it never seems to have occurred to the Pres- 
ident to make requisition upon me for the militia of Georgia to aid in re- 
pelling this 'formidable invasion' or these 'destructive raids,' and it is 
only when he is informed that I have an organization of gallant, fearless men, 
ready to defend the State against usurpations of power as well as invasions 
by the enemy, that he makes requisition upon me for this force and all others 
I can organize. I must express my astonishment, however, that you and the 
President should seem to be ignorant of the fact that this force was organized 
by me to aid in repelling the army of invasion, that it was placed by me un- 
der the command of General Johnston and afterwards of General Hood for 
the defence of Atlanta, and that the brave men of which it is composed, under 
the command of the general appointed by the President for the defence of 
the city, have taken their full share in the dangers, fatigues and sufferings of 
the campaign, and have acted with distinguished valor both upon the battle 
field and for over forty days in the trenches around the city of Atlanta, and 
that they formed the rear guard when Atlanta was evacuated, and brought 
off with tiiem safe and in good order the reserve artillery of the army which 
was especially intrusted to them by the Commander-in-Chief. For all this no 
word of thanks or praise comes from the President to encourage them. They 
21 



322 correspoxden:ce of gov. brown 

were militia. Their generals and other officers were not appointed by the 
President and their services are ignored by him. 

" In making this requisition it is quite clear that it was no part of the Pres- 
ident's object to get these brave men into service. They were there at the 
time, in the trenches, among those who were nearest to the enemy, where they 
never faltered in a single instance. It was not done to produce harmony in 
the command, for the most perfect harmony has existed between me and both 
the generals who have commanded the army since the militia were called 
out, and it is well known that I placed them for the time under the absolute 
control of the Confederate General commanding. It was not done to increase 
the number in service at the front, for the President is too familiar with the 
obstacles thrown in my way by Confederate officers when I have attempted 
to compel men to go to the trenches, to have committed this mistake. It 
was certainly not done to cause Georgia to furnish her quota of troops re- 
quired in like proportion of other States, for she has already furnished more 
than her just quota, and to every call responded with more than were required, 
while she has borne the rigors of conscription executed with as much severity 
as in any other State. I hear of no similar requisition having been made 
upon any other State. While Georgia has more than filled every requisition 
made upon her in common with her sister Slates, and has borne her full share 
of conscription, and has for months had her reserved militia under arms from 
sixteen to fifty-five years of age, I am informed that even the Confederate re- 
serves of other States from seventeen to eighteen, and from forty-five to fifty, 
have till very lately been permitted by the President to spend much of their 
time at home attending to their ordinary business. Without departing from 
legitimate inquiry as to the cause of this requisition, I might ask why this 
distinction is made against the good people of this State, and why her Con- 
federate reserves are kept constantly in service, and why requisition is made 
for her whole militia, wheii the same is not required of any other State. It 
is quite clear that it was not made either to compel the State to do her just 
part, which she has always done, or to put more of her sons into active service 
for her defence, for every man called for by the requisition was in service be- 
fore it was made. The President must then have had some other motive in 
making the requisition, and I think it not uncharitable under all the circum- 
stances to conclude that the object was to grasp into his own hands the en- 
tire control of the whole reserve militia of the State, which would enable him 
to disband its present organization, and place in power over it his own par- 
tisans and favorites as major-generals, brigadier-generals etc., etc., in place 
of the distinguished officers who were appointed to command in conformity 
to the Constitution of the country and the laws of the State, and who have 
commanded the organization with so much honor to themselves, satisfaction 
to the troops, and advantage to the public service. 

" Again, it is worthy of remark that the requisition is made upon me for 
the whole militia of the State — all I have organized and all I can organize — 



AND THE SECRETAEY OF WAR 323 

■without limitation of time or place of service. If I comply with it the 
militia of Georgia, after the President has obtained absolute control over 
them, may be taken for the war from their State, as tens of thousands of their 
bniV3 fellow citizens no.v aie, while Georgia and their homes are being over- 
run. If I am asked to trust the sound judgment and good faith of the 
President for their discharge and return to their homes at such times as their 
services are not indispensable in the military field, I cannot forget the faith 
that was violated last fall to thousands of Georgians who were organized 
under a requisition from the President to be ' employed in the local defence 
of important cities, and in repelling in emergencies the sudden or transient in- 
cursions of the enemy,' to be employed ' only when and so long as they 
might be needed,' ' with the privilege of remaining at home in the pursuit 
of their ordinary avocations unless when called for a temporary exigency to 
active. duty.' 

" Thousands of these men, organized for six months' service with the 
guarantees above mentioned, were called out early in September last and 
were kept constantly in service till the expiration of their term in March, 
During most of the time they were guarding no important city. There was 
no sudden emergency or transient incursion of the enemy, no exigency for 
the last four months of the time, and still they were kept in service in viola- 
tion of the faith that had been pledged to them, and were denied the privi- 
lege of going home or attending to the 'pursuit of any of their ordinary 
avocations,' and this too after the contract under which they had entered 
the service had been pressed upon the consideration of the President. 

"It is impossible for the agricultural and other industrial pursuits of the 
people to be saved from ruin if the whole reserve militia of the State from 
16 to 55 are put permanently into the service as regular troops. Judging 
from the past, I cannot place them at the command of the President for the 
war without great apprehension that such would be their fate. Indeed, not 
even the President's promise to the contrary is found in the requisition you 
now make. I am not, therefore, willing to expose the whole reserve militia 
of Georgia to this injustice, and our agricultural and other interests to ruin 
when no other State is required to make any such sacrifice or to fill any such 
requisition. 

"The Constittttion of the Confederate States attthorizes the States as well 
as the Confederacy to keep troops in time of war when actually invaded, as 
Georgia now is. Her militia have been organized and called into active ser- 
vice under her own laws for her own defence, and I do not feel that I am 
authorized to destroy her military organization at the behest of the Presi- 
dent, or to surrender to him the command of the troops organized and re- 
tained by her by virtue of her reserved power for her own defence when 
greatly needed for that purpose, and which are her only remaining protec- 
tion against the encroachments of centralized power. I tlierefore decline to 
comply with or fill this extraordinary requisition. AVhile I refuse to gratify 



324 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

the President's ambition in this particular, and to surrender the last vestige 
of the sovereignty of the State by placing the remainder of her militia under 
his control for the war, I beg to assure you that I shall not hesitate to order 
them to the front, and they will not shun the thickest of the fight when the 
enemy is, to be met upon the soil of their beloved State. Nor will I withhold 
them from the temporary command of the Confederate general who controls 
the army during great emergencies when he needs their aid. 

" I shall, however, retain the power to withdraw them and to furlough or 
disband them for a time to look to their agricultural and other vital interests 
which would otherwise be ruined by neglect, whenever I see they can be 
spared from the military field without endangering the safety of the State. 
Of this the Governor of the State at Milledgeville, where he is near the field 
of operations and can have frequent interviews with the commanding gen- 
eral, ought to be as competent to judge' as the President of the Confederacy 
some hundreds of miles from the scene of action, charged with the defence of 
Richmond and all the other responsibilities which require his attention and 
divide his time. 

" Georgia now has upon the soil of Virginia nearly fifty regiments of as 
brave troops as ever met the enemy in deadly conflict, not one of which 
ever faltered in the hour of trial. She has many others equally gallant 
aiding in the defence of other States. Indeed, the blood of her sons has 
crimsoned almost every battle-field east of the Mississippi from the first 
Manassas to the fall of Atlanta. Her gallant sons who still survive are 
kept by the President's orders far from her soil while their homes are being 
overrun, their wives and children driven out before the enemy and reduced 
to beggary and want, and their almost idolized State exposed to temporary 
subjugation and ruin. Experience having shown that the army of Tennes- 
see with the aid of the militia force of the State is not able to withstand and 
drive back the overwhelming numbers of the army of invasion, as the Exec- 
utive of Georgia, in behalf of her brave sons now absent in other States as 
well as of her whole people at home, I demand as an act of simple justice that 
such reinforcements be sent as are necessary to enable the army upon her soil 
to stop the progress of the enemy and dislodge and drive him back. In view 
of the fact that the permanent possession of Georgia by the enemy not only 
ruins her people, but cuts the Confederacy east of the Mississippi in two, and 
strikes a death blow at the Confederate Government itself, I trust this most 
reasonable request will be granted. If, however, I should be informed that 
the President will send no reinforcements and make no further effort to 
strengthen our defences, 1 then demand that he permit all the sons of 
Georgia to return to their own State and within her own limits to rally 
around her glorious flag — and as it flutters in the breeze in defiance of the 
foe to strike for their wives and their children, their homes and their altars, 
and the 'green graves' of their kindred and sires; and I as their Executive 
promise that whoever else may be withdrawn from her defence, they will 



AND THE SECEETARY OF WAR. 325 

drive the enemy back to her borders, or, overwhelmed and stricken down, 
they will nobly perish in one last grand and glorious effort to wrest the 
standard of her liberties and independence from the grasp of the oppressor 
and plant it immovably upon her sacred soil. 
" I am very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"Joseph E. Brown." 



" CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, 
War Department, 
RicnMOND, October 8, 1864. 
"HIS EXCELLENCY J. E. BROWN, 

"Governor of Georgia, 

" Miliedgeville, Ga. 

" Sir : — Your letter of the 12th ult. reached me some days since. Its tenor 
and spirit have caused painful surprise. It requires forbearance in reply to 
maintain the respect I would pay your station and observe the official pro- 
priety you have so transcended. I shall seek to notice only such portions as 
appropriately pertain to an official communication. 

" The department, on the 30th of August, under the direction of the Presi- 
dent, made a requisition upon you for the entire militia which had been or 
should be organized by you, that they might be employed to repel the ' for- 
midable invasion ' of Georgia by the enemy, and to secure her from ' de- 
structive raids.' The requisition was for militia in a state of organization. 
The appointment of the officers of militia is secured by the Constitution to 
the State from which they are drawn, and in proposing to accept organized 
militia, the officers legally appointed would necessarily accompany tlieir 
commands. 

"The inducements to this call were several. You had in official commu- 
nication stated that you had ten thousand militia organized, and you were 
known to be apparently busy in organizing others. Of these, a portion, it 
was known, were with the army of Tennessee in some auxiliary relation, and 
had rendered valuable service with that array in the defence of Georgia. Only 
a limited number, however, not believed to constitute half of the number 
reported by you to be actually organized, were so employed, and were, as has 
been announced by you, held there only at your pleasure, and for such time 
and during such operations as you might approve. The services of these 
gallant defenders of their State were so appreciated as to render it desirable 
that the full number, organized or to be organized, should be secured to 
repel the formidable invasion threatening to overrun the State ; and both to 
impart greater unity and efficiency to the command of them and enable the 
general commanding to rely on the period and tenure of their services, it was 
necessary they should be in Confederate service, and subject not to your 
judgment or disposal, but to the control of the constitutional commander-in- 



3 20 COEEESPOXDEN"CE OF GOV. BROWN 

chief. It is easy to see how uncertainty as to their control or retention 
must impair reliance by the commander on these troops, and embarrass all 
calculations for their employment and efficiency in combined operations. 
An additional ground of the call was that some of these troops had been 
detailed for objects not admitted by the enrolling officers in the State to be 
authorized by Confederate law, and others were claimed as primarily liable, 
or previously subjected to Confederate service. This had engendered con- 
troversy, and endangered collision between the local, Confederate and State 
authorities which it was most desirable to anticipate and preclude. 

" Besides, these militia, as far as they were serving the Confederate army, 
had to be subsisted from the commissary stores of the Confederacy, and 
might equitably expect pay from its treasury ; but if .held as State troops 
only, both subsistence and pay constituted a charge on the State alone. 

" Serious embarrassments had already arisen on these very points, and de- 
parture had been necessary from the regular obligations of the Confederate 
Government, which were not just to either that Government or its disbursing 
officers. The powers of the Confederate Government to provide for the 
common defence are exercised according to laws through agencies adopted 
by Congress. None of these laws contemplated the fulfilment of this duty, 
by troops organized and held by the State in its own service, and under 
officers responsible only to it. 

"The Constitution of the Confederate States does not confer on the State 
the power to keep troops in time of war. The States are prohibited from 
' keeping troops or ships of war in time of peace, entei'ing into any agree- 
ment or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engaging in 
war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of 
delay.' The power of keeping troops in time of war is thus reserved, and 
naturally includes whatever is necessary to accomplish the object of the reser- 
vation, and is limited in its scope and operation only by the Constitution of 
the Confederate States ' and the laws which shall be made in pursuance 
thereof.' It does not imply any withdrawal from the Confederate Govern- 
ment, of those instrumentalities and agencies that the Constitution has con- 
fided to the Government of the Confederacy for the fulfilment of the 
obligations it has imposed upon it. 

" The powers to declare war, to raise armies, to maintain a navy, to make 
rules for the government of the land and naval forces, to make rules concern- 
ing captures on land and water, to protect each of .the States against in- 
vasion, which are deposited with Congress,manifest the purpose of the States 
in forming their Constitution, to charge the Confederate Government with 
the burden of providing for the common defence. The clause in the Consti- 
tution relative to the militia was framed in harmony with the same purpose. 
The Constitution charges Congress with the organization, equipment, and dis- 
cipline of the militia, and designates the President as Commander-in-Chief of 
those that may be called into service. 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 327 

"It was evidently the design of the Constitution, and of the laws of Con- 
gress, in pursuance thereof, which are the supreme laws of the land, that the 
President should have the discretion and the power of calling this militia 
into service, and having personally or through Confederate commanders, the 
disposition and command of them. In a crisis of great peril, and in a case 
of plain invasion of your State, he has exei'cised this power, and made the 
Constitutional requirements on you. You have met it with a distinct 
refusal. 

"This is the first instance in the annals of the Confederacy of the sug- 
gestion of a doubt on the right of the President to make such call, and the 
obligation of compliance by the State Executive. 

" During the last war with Great Britain, a question of the kind was made 
by the Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut with the President of the 
then United States. They claimed to decide whether the exigencies existed 
which authorized the President to make a requisition for militia to repel in- 
vasions, and denied his power to associate them with other troops under a 
Federal officer. They affected to believe the exercise of such a power, im- 
perilled State rights, and promoted personal ambition. The judicial tribunals 
determined adversely to the pretensions of these Governors, and the country 
did not fail to discover, lurking under their specious pretences, hostility 
scarcely less than criminal to the constituted authorities of the Union, an un- 
licensed ambition in themselves, and a dangerous purpose, in the midst of 
war, to cripple patriotic efforts for the public defence. The impression was 
not wanting, either then or since, that they were even in communication with 
the enemy, or at least proposed to give them encouragement and moral 
support. 

" Withotit imputing to you such designs, I cannot repress apprehensions 
of similar effects from your analogous course under the present more trying 
circumstances, as indeed it must be admitted in all particulars, and 
especially on the main point of the existence of invasion, there was more 
plausibility in their case than in yours, on the grounds assigned for refusal. 
" On analyzing your Excellency's letter, it is apparent that the prominent 
and influencing reasons of your action, spring from a spirit of opposition to 
the government of the Confederate States, and animosity to the Chief Mag- 
istrate whom the people of the Confederacy have honored by their choice 
and confidence. Your reasons may be reduced to the following : 

"1. That the campaign in Georgia, not having been controlled by the 
President, according to your conceptions or with the means you advised, you 
will not permit any force you can control to be subject to his disposition, 
but will yourself retain their control and mete out your assistance according 
to your views of policy and State interest. 

" 2. That you suspect the President of a design, after the reception of these 
militia, to disorganize or disband them that he may displace the officers 
commanding them and substitute his partisans and favorites. 



328 COREESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

" 3. You apprehend that these militia, under the President's control, will be 
employed for such length of time and under such conditions as will be delete- 
rious to the interests of themselves and the State, and esteem yourself a bet- 
ter judge on these points, especially as to when and where they shall be 
employed, furloughed, or discharged, etc. 

" 4. That these troops, besides being necessary as a defence against inva- 
sion, are also necessary to defend the State against usurpations of power and 
as ' a protection against the encroachment of centralized power,' and that the 
knowledge of the President of their ability and disposition to do this was the 
motive for the call on you. 

"In reference to the first, it might not be safe, as it would not be expedi- 
ent, now to expose the circumstances of the present campaign, the counsels 
that guided, or the resources that have been or could be commanded for its 
operations. 

" None should have known more certainly than your Excellency the zeal 
and energy with which the President and this department, under his auspices, 
have striven to command resources and means for the defence of Georgia and 
the overthrow of the invader, nor the impediments and difficulties often un- 
fortunately resulting from the obstruction of the local authorities which they 
had to encounter. Aware early of the danger that menaced the State, be- 
sides concentrating troops from other departments for its defence, this 
department strained all the powers vested in it for recruiting the army 
within the limits of Georgia and accumulating supplies for its support. 
The legislation of the Congress that ended its session in February last had 
been comprehensive and vigorous. 

"Your Excellency cannot have forgotten how that legislation was de- 
nounced and the efforts of the department impaired by the countervailing 
action of the Executive and local authorities of your State. To the depart- 
ment it cannot be imputed as a fault that Georgia was invaded by ' over- 
whelming numbers.' The ten thousand militia you boast to have organized, 
without adding to the count those you are proceeding to organize, if incor- 
porated with the veteran regiments prior to the first of May, would have been 
an invaluable acquisition to the army of Tennessee and not improbably have 
hurled back the invader from the threshold of your State. That they, or a 
large proportion of them at least, were not ready for that service and other 
auxiliary means to its operations were not afforded, I am bound to think was 
due to the obstacles and embarrassments interposed by your Excellency and 
the local authorities, with your countenance, to the enforcement of the Acts 
of Congress for the recruitment and maintenance of the armies. Your Ex- 
cellency may not have foreseen and realized the extent and import of the 
approachmg invasion, but to whom then with most safety and wisdom (apart 
even from constitutional obligation) can the disposition and command of the 
troops in question be committed ? 

" In your second reason it is difficult to find anything but the ascription 



AND THE SECKETARY OF WAE. 329 

to the President of an unworthy design — a design that cannot be accom- 
plished without disappointing the objects which I have explained as the 
cause of the requisition. The disbanding of the militia organizations after 
their call into service would result in the discharge of such of the men as 
are not liable to service under the Act of Congress of February last, and those 
who are liable, in such an event, would be placed in those veteran regiments 
raised for Confederate service in the State of Georgia prior to April, 1862, 
whose diminished numbers attest the fidelity, valor, and suffering with which 
they have performed their duty. Whether, therefore, the militia be retained 
in their militia organizations, as is contemplated, or be disbanded as you ap- 
prehend may be done, in neither event can new organizations be made or 
new officers appointed. Your suspicions as to the- motives and designs of 
the President are simply chimerical. 

" In your third reason your Excellency has apparently forgotten the true 
inquiry, where, constitutionally and legally in all such matters, the discretion 
of decision is lodged, and further, that a provision adequate in the view of 
Congress against abuse has been provided in the limitation of time for which 
the militia may be called out to six months. In illustrating the danger of 
undue detention in Confederate service your Excellency refers to the course 
pursued towards the troops for local service enlisted by -you last fall under a 
call from the department. During the last winter your Excellency addressed 
to this department an acrimonious letter on this subject, which was replied 
to in a spirit of forbearance and with a careful abstinence from the use of 
recriminating language. 

"Justice to myself demands that I should place upon the records of the 
department the facts to which you have again alluded in the same language 
of acrimonious reproach. It had been designed to raise troops for special 
defence and local service as the general rule throughout the State, to consti- 
tute a part of the provisional army, and to be subject to the call of the 
President when needed. You asked to supervise and control the whole 
matter, and unfortunately the privilege was yielded. 

" You abused it to form nondescript organizations, not conforming to the 
regulations of the provisional army, scant in men and abounding in officers, 
with every variety of obligation for local service, generally of the most re- 
stricted character, and for the brief period of only six months. Thus it was 
that you were enabled to indulge tlie vain boast of raising some sixteen thou- 
sand men for the defence of the State, while in fact scarce a decent division of 
four thousand men could be mustered for the field, and those only for six 
months' service. From the time they were passed to Confederate service 
there was pressing necessity for their presence in the field, for Georgia was 
not only menaced, but actually invaded, and the number was too limited to 
allow substitution or furlough. Apart from this, you persistently claimed 
that they should be held and regarded as militia. In that view, they 
could not if dismissed be recalled on emergency as local troops, and this 



330 CORKESPONDEKCE OF GOV. BROWN 

naturally induced their detention for the full period of their limited term of 
service. 

" To your last reason I refrain from replying as its character would justify. 
I cannot think the significancy of the language quoted has been duly appre- 
ciated by your Excellency. I prefer to consider them as inconsiderate utter- 
ances rather than the foreshadowing of a guilty purpose to ari-ay your State 
in armed antagonism against the Confederacy, and so to betray the cause of 
herself and sister States. 

" Such purpose I know would be scorned and rebuked by her heroic sol- 
diery and loyal people, and it will not, while it be possible to avoid it, be 
ascribed by me to one whose official station makes him their recognized or-_ 
gan. I must, however, gravely regret that the spirit of your Excellency's 
past action and public expressions has caused grievous misconceptions in 
relation to the feelings and purposes of yourself, and perhaps of others of 
influence in your State, in the convictions of our enemies to their encourage- 
ment, and the mortification of many patriotic citizens of the Confederacy. 

" Our enemies appear to have conceived you were even prepared to enter- 
tain overtures of separate accommodation, and that your State, so justly 
proud of its faith, valor and renown, could be seduced or betrayed to treach- 
ery and desertion. So painful a manifestation of the hopes inspired by your 
indulgence of resentments and suspicions against the Confederate Adminis- 
tration will, it is hoped, awaken to consideration and a change of future 
action. To the department it would be far more grateful, instead of being 
engaged in reminding of constitutional obligations and repelling unjust im- 
putations, to be co-operating with your Excellency in a spirit of unity and 
confidence, in the defence of your State and the overthrow of the invader. 
" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"JAMES A. SEDDON, 

" Secretary of War." 

"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ^ 

MiLLEDGEVILLE, Ga., >- 

November 14, 1861.) 
"HON. JAMES A. SEDDON, Secretary of War. 

" Sir: — Official engagements have prevented earlier attention to your letter 
of 8th ult., which reached me on the 20tli. 

" You are pleased to characterize a portion of my letter as acrimonious, and 
claim that I have transcended the bounds of official propriety, and seem to 
desire me to understand that you labor under difficulties in restraining your- 
self within the bounds of forbearance in your reply. As the acrimony of 
my letter consisted in a simple narrative of truths, communicated in a plain 
straightforward manner, calling things by their right name, I feel that I am 
due you no apology. Of course no personal disrespect was intended. I am 
dealing not with individuals, but with great principles, and with the conduct 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 331 

of an administration of tlie government, of which your department is but 
one branch. And if you will not consider the remark acrimonious, I will 
add that the people of my State, not being dependent, and never intending 
to be, upon that government for the privilege of exercising their natural 
and Constitutional rights, nor the Executive of the State for his official ex- 
istence, T shall on all occasions feel at liberty to exercise perfect independ- 
ence in the discharge of my official obligations, with no other restraints than 
those thrown around me by a sense of duty, and the Constitution of my 
country, and the laws of my State. 

"You remark that this is the first instance in the annals of the Confederacy 
of a suggestion of a doubt on the right of the President to make such a call, 
and the obligation of compliance by the State Executive. Doubtless you 
are right, as this is unquestionably the first instance in the annals of either 
the old or new Confederacy of such a call, made by the President. It pre- 
sents the isolated case of an attempt by the President to single out a partic- 
ular State, and, by grasping into his own hands its whole military strength, 
to divest it of its last vestige of power to maintain its sovereignty ; not only 
denying to it the right plainly reserved in the Constitution to keep troops 
in time of war when actually invaded, but claiming the power to deprive it 
of its whole militia and leave it not a man to aid in the execution of its laws, 
or to suppress servile insurrection in its midst. 

" The President demands that Georgia shall turn over to him, and relin- 
quish her command and control over every militiaman now organized by her 
Executive, and all he may be able to organize. The militia is composed 
mainly of a class of men and boys, between ages not subject by the laws of 
Congress or of the State to serve in the Confederate armies. The President 
calls for all the State has of the above description. As no such requisition 
was ever before made upon any State, and it probably never entered into the 
mind of any statesman that such a call ever would be made, it never became 
necessary to question the right to make it. 

" You cite the case of the refusal of the Governors of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut, during the last war with Great Britain, to furnish troops for 
the common defence upon the requisition of the President of the United 
States, and say it must be admitted that my course is analogous to theirs ' in 
all particulars,' and that there was more plausibility in their case than in 
mine, on the grounds assigned for refusal. Let us test this statement by the 
standard of truth. You say the cases are analogous 'in all particulars.' I 
deny that they are analogous in any particular. To show the character of. 
that call, I quote the language of President Monroe : 

" ' It will be recollected that when a call was made on the militia of that 
State, for service in the war, under an arrangement which was alike appli- 
cable to the militia of all the States, and in conformity with the acts of Con- 
gress, the Executive of Massachusetts refused to comply with the call.' That, 
then, was a call under an arrangement alike applicable to the militia of all the 



332 COERESPONDENCE OF GOV. BEOWN" 

States. This is not a call made under an arrangement alike applicable to the 
militia of all the States, or indeed of any of the other States. This is a call 
for all the militia which the Executive of Georgia has organized or may be 
able to organize. No such call was made by the President upon the militia 
of any other State. The analogy fails then at the very first step. But let 
us trace it a little further. That was a call for men within the age required 
to do military service in the armies of the United States. This is a call for 
men who are exempt by act of Congress from all service in the Confederate 
armies, and of whom it is expressly declared, by an act of the Legislature 
of Georgia, that they shall not be ' liable to any draft or other compulsory 
process to Jill any requisition for troops upon the Governor of the State by 
the President of the Confederate States.' That was a call which the Presi- 
dent could legally make, and which the Governors had lawful authority to 
fill. This is a call which the President had no lawful right to make, and 
which the Governor could not fill without violating a positive statute of his 
State. That was a call for active militia who were not in service, but were 
at home attending' to their ordinary pursuits. This is a call for reserve 
militia, who, at the time it was made and for months past, had been in 
actual service — most of the time in the trenches around Atlanta, under the 
constant fire of the guns of the enemy. In that case, the Governors of Mas- 
sachusetts and Connecticut refused to place the militia of those States under 
the command of a Federal' general. In this case the militia had already 
been placed by the Governor of Georgia under the command of a Confederate 
general, where they were on the very day the call was made, and had been 
for some months previous. 

"In that case, the Governors of those States adjudged that no emergency 
existed to justify the call for the militia, after the President had decided that 
it did, and they refused to order them into the field. In this case, the Gov- 
ernor of Georgia admitted that the emergency did exist, and had ordered 
them in, months before the President saw the emergency and called for the 
services of the militia. In that case, the President was making an honest 
effort to get the militia of Massachusetts and Connecticut into service, to 
aid in repelling any assaults that might be made by the enemy. In this 
case, the President, after the reserve militia of Georgia had been called out 
by the Governor and put into active service, was using his official influence 
as shown by General Orders Nos. 63 and 67, issued by his Adjutant-General, 
to get the militia of Georgia out of service, where they were confronting the 
enemy and shedding their blood in the defence of their State. 

" When they were in the trenches under the fire of the enemy, the Presi- 
dent held out, as a reward for their delinquency in case of their desertion 
from the State militia and return home, a guarantee of the privilege of re- 
maining there in local companies, to be called out only in emergencies to 
defend their own counties and vicinage. 

"I append to this letter, paragraph 1, General Order No. 63, and a para- 



AND THE SECEETARY OF WAR. 333 

graph of General Order No. 67, by reference to which it will be seen that all 
detailed men were required, and all exempts from Confederate service invited 
to enroll themselves in local companies at Lome, with promise that they 
should be called out only in emergencies to defend the counties of their 
residence and contiguous counties. 

" The present militia of Georgia are composed of exempts from Confederate 
service and such detailed men as are not in the military service of the Con- 
federate States. The militia of the State, then at the front, was composed 
of men of these classes only. The order was addressed to all men of both 
classes. The President denied the right of the Governor of Georgia to call 
'out the detailed men for service, and would, if consistent, stand ready to pro- 
tect them in case they would desert the militia service and return liome and 
join his local companies. Thus the strong temptation of remaining at home 
was held out by the President to these men if they would ingloriously aban- 
don Atlanta when beleaguered by the enemy, and, after desertion from the 
militia, enlist in Confederate service, which would give the President the en- 
tire command of them and enable him to destroy the militia organization of 
the State. Fortunately, the temptation succeeded in inducing but a small 
portion of the militia to desert and return home. They were generally true 
men and stood gallantly by their colors, knowing their country needed their 
services at the front and not in local companies in the rear. General Order 
No. 63 was issued on the 6th of August and was followed by General Order 
No. 67 on the 16th of the same month. The President then waited two 
weeks and as the militia still remained in the trenches around Atlanta he 
found it necessary to change his policy and resort to a requisition upon me 
for the whole militia of the State as the only means left of accomplishing his 
objects. 

" President Madison offered no such inducements to and made no such requi- 
sition upon the militia of Massachusetts and Connecticut. So much for the 
analogy of the two cases. But you are as unfortunate in your facts as in 
your analogy, as will be further seen by your statement that the 'judicial 
tribunals determined adversely to the pretensions of the Governors.' By ref- 
erence to the 8th volume Massachusetts Reports Supplement, page.5i9, you 
will find that the judges of the supreme court of that State had the case 
before them and determined every point made by Governor Strong in bis 
favor and ' adversely to the pretensions ' of the President. 

" But you remind me that the 10,000 militia, which you say I had organ- 
ized, with those I was proceeding to organize, if incorporated with the veteran 
regiments prior to the first of May, would have been an invaluable acquisi- 
tion to the army of Tennessee and not improbably have hurled back the 
invaders from the threshold of my State. If this were true and the move- 
ments and strength of the enemy were so much better understood by the 
President than by myself, as you would have the country believe, why was it 
that the President made no call for the militia in May when the armies were 



334 COERESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

above Dalton ? Why was the call delayed till the 30th of August, two days 
before Atlanta fell, and then mailed to me too late to reach Milledgeville till 
after the fall? If the control of the whole militia of the State by the Pres- 
ident was so essential to the defence of Atlanta, how do you account for the 
neglect of the President to call for them till after the campaign had ended in 
the surrender of the city to the enemy ? 

" Seeing that the President did not seem to appreciate the emergency and 
the danger to Atlanta, upon consultation with that far-seeing general and 
distinguished soldier, Joseph E. Johnston, I had ordered the militia to report 
to him and aid the gallant army of Tennessee. I first ordered out the civil and 
military officers of the State, when the armies were near Dalton, and afterwards 
called out the reserved militia, including all between sixteen and fifty-five 
years of age, when they were at Kennesaw. Duiing all this time and for 
nearly two months afterwards no call was made by the President for their 
services. If the statements you now make are correct, surely such neglect 
by the President in so critical an emergency involves little less than 
criminality. 

"Again you state as one of the inducements to the call that I had stated in 
official correspondence that I had ten thousand militia organized — that a por- 
tion of these were known to be with the army of Tennessee in some auxiliary 
relation — only a limited number, however, not believed to constitute half the 
number reported by me to be actually organized. 

" You are again incorrect in your facts and, unfortunately, ignorant of the 
strength of the force that was under your command. 

" In the official correspondence to which I suppose you allude, I did not 
state that I had organized ten thousand militia. The language used was, 
'nearly ten thousand armed men.' At that time the two regiments of the 
State Line, who are regular ti'oops for the war, numbei'ed nearly fifteen hun- 
dred. They too were placed under the Confederate commander and nearly 
five hundred of them while under his command have been disabled or lost 
upon the battle-field. But if I had made the statement as you incorrectly 
charge, it would have been true. 

" The tri-monthly report forwarded by Major-General G. W. Smith, who 
commands the division of State militia, to General Hood, dated September 
10, 1864, but a few days after the fall of Atlanta, showed upon the muster 
rolls of his division nine thousand one hundred and seventy men. This re- 
port did not include the regiment of Fulton county militia, which had been 
detached for local service in the city under the command of Brigadier-General 
M. J. Wright of the Confedei-ate army ; nor the regiment of Troup county 
militia which was stationed by the commanding general at West Point under 
Brigadier-General Tyler oE the Confederate army. Nor did it include the 
two regiments of the State Line which had been ordered into other divisions 
of the army of Tennessee. Nor did it include the battalion of cadets of 
the Georgia Military Institute, who did gallant service in the trenches of 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 335 

Atlanta. Nov did it embrace the names of the gallant dead of this division, 
who never turned their backs to the enemy but fell upon the battle-field or 
died in the hospital. These had rendered the last service in the power of 
the pati-iot to his country before the President saw the necessity which in- 
duced him to call for them, and as they slept at the date of his call in the 
soldiers' grave they were, unfortunately^, unable to respond. But if you say that 
the whole ten thousand were not in the trenches with muskets in their hands, 
I reply that, while many were sick and some absent without leave, a larger 
proportion of the number upon the muster rolls were there than of probably 
any other division in General Hood's army, and, judging from the late 
' speech of the President in Macon, a much larger number than tlie usual 
average in the armies of the Confederacy. 

" As I understand your letter, you deny that it was the purpose of the 
President to disband or disorganize the militia, and say he intended to take 
the organization with all its officers and maintain it. I do not pretend to 
quote your language, but state what I understand to be the substance. 
Unfortunately your own record contradicts you. In the requisition made by 
you occurs this sentence : ' Those within the limits of General Hood's 
department will report to him ; those outside to the Commandant of the 
department of Soutii Carolina and Georgia.' The line between these depart- 
ments cuts in two General Smith's division and probably three of the four 
brigades of which it is composed, and the requisition orders that part of this 
division and those brigades on one side of it to report to General Hood, then 
at Atlanta, and that part on the other side, to the Commandant whose head- 
quarters were at Charleston. But this was not all ; it amounted to an 
order in advance, if I responded to tlie call, to a large proportion of the 
militia then under arms to leave Atlanta in the very crisis of her fate and 
return home and report to General Jones whose headquarters were at 
Charleston. This would not only have permanently divided and disbanded 
the militia organization as it e?;isted under the laws of the State, but would 
have aided the President in carrying out his policy already referred to of 
withdrawing the militia from Atlanta before its fall, and compelliiig armed 
men then aiding in its defence to leave and report to a Commandant upon 
the coast where there was no attack anticipated from the enemy. So deter- 
mined was the President to accomplish both these objects that he did not 
pretend to conceal his purpose, but incorporated it into the requisition itself. 
"Past experience has also shown that the President will surmount all 
obstacles to secure to himself the appointment of the officers who are to 
command troops under his control. Soon after the commencement of the war 
Georgia tendered to him an excellent brigade of her most gallant sons, fully 
armed, accoutred and equipped with two months' training in camp of instruc- 
tion. He refused to accept it as it wa?, but disbanded it and, refusing to recog- 
nize the commanding general (though every officer, I believe, in the brigade, 
from the highest to the lowest, petitioned to have him retained), scattered the 



336 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

regiments into other brigades. The twelve months' men entered the service 
with officers elected by them, and he accepted them vi^ith their officers. The 
Constitution of the Confederate States, as I have heretofore most conclu- 
sively shown, and as the Legislature of the State has resolved, as well as 
the laws of the State, authorize them to elect officers to fill all vacancies that 
occur. The President has disregarded this right, and claims and exercises 
the right to appoint all such officers for them. His past course, as well as 
the plain language of the requisition, shows that you misrepre.^ent the Presi- 
dent when you deny that it was his purpose in making the requisition to dis- 
band the militia ; and I am satisfied that I do him no injustice in supposing 
that it was his intention, after they were disbanded, to appoint his own 
partisans and favorites to command them. 

" Reference is made in your letter to the act of Congress to show that the 
President could only hold the mihtia six months under a call upon the Gov- 
ernor for their services. You seem to forget that many of those then in 
service for whom he called had already served nearly four months. And 
vou seem to suppose that I will be unmindful how easy it would be at the 
end of six months for the President simply to renew the call for another six 
months, and continue this to the end of the war, and in this way keep the 
old men and boys of Georgia constantly in service to the destruction of all 
her agricultural and other material interest, while no such requirement is 
made of any other State. But if this were not possible by these repeated 
calls, what guaranty have they under the act of Congress and the promise of 
the President that they would be disbanded at the end of six months? The 
joriginal twelve months' men entered the service under the like protection, as 
they supposed, of an act of Congress and a solemn contract with the Presi- 
dent that they should be discharged at the end of their time. But before 
the time expired the President procured another act of Congress which 
changed the law on that subject, and he then refused to be bound by his con- 
tract, and those of them who survive are yet in service near the end of the 
fourth year. Even the furloughs promised them were not allowed. And 
ministers of religion who made a contract with the Government to serve for 
one year, and others who agreed to serve three years in the ranks, are held 
after the exp)iration of their time, when they would be embraced in the 
exemption act, which protects those at home if the Government had kept its 
_faith and discharged them according to the contract. 

" In this connection I must also notice your remarks in reference to the 
six months' men of last fall in this State. And as every material statement 
you now make upon that subject is contradicted by the records of your de- 
partment, made up over your own signature, the task is an unpleasant one. 

" You say ' it had been designed to raise troops for special defence and 
local service for the wak with the obligation of service as the general rule 
throughout the State, to constitute a part of the provisional army, and to be 
subject to the call of the President when needed.' If this statement means 



AND THE SECEETARY OF WAR. 337 

anything, it is intended to mean that the call was made on me for the troops 
to serve yo?- the war, with obligation, as the general rule, to do service through- 
out the State. That is what you now say. What did you then say ? I quote 
from your requisition of 6th June, 1863. 

" ' The President has therefore determined to make a requisition on the 
Governors of the several States, to furnish by an appointed time, for service 
within the State, and for the limited period of six montha, a number of men,' 
etc. Again, in the same requisition you say, ' I am instructed by the Presi- 
dent, iij his name, to make on you a requisition for eight thousand men, to 
be furnished by your State, for the period of six months from the first day 
of August next, unless in the intermediate time a volunteer force organized 
under the law for local defence and special service, of at least an equal num- 
ber, be mustered and reported as subject to his call for service within your 
State.' 

" This does not look much as if the call was made for troops for the 
WAR ! Was it for troops to serve as the general rule throughout the State ? I 
quote from the same document. You say, 'it becomes essential that the 
reserves of our population capable of bearing arms, etc., be relied on for em- 
ployment in the local defence of important cities, abd in repelling in emergencies 
the sudden or transient incursions of the enemy.' Again, ' local organizations 
or enlistments by volunteering for limited periods and special purposes, if they 
can be induced, would afford more assurance of prompt and efficient action.' 
You then refer to the two acts of Congress for local defence and special ser- 
vice, and enclose copies of them and call my attention to them. And you 
proceed to say, 'under the former of these, if organizations could be effected, 
with the limitations prescribed in their muster rolls, of service only at home or at 
specified points of importance within the particular State, they would be ad- 
mirably adapted to obtain the desired end.' In speaking of the inducements 
to be held out to those who will form volunteer companies under the act of 
Congress, you speak of them as ' organizations for special service within the 
State, under officers of their own selection, and with the privilege of remain- 
ing at home in the pursuit of their ordinary aoocations, unless when called for 
a temporary exigency to active duty.' In reference to the service to be per- 
formed by these organizations, you then use this language : 

" ' Without the general disturbance of a call on the militia, the organiza- 
tions nearest to the points of attack would always be readily summoned to meet 
the emergency, and the population resident in cities and their vicinities would, 
without serious interruption to their business or domestic engagements, stand 
organized and prepared to man their entrenchments and defend, under the 
most animating incitements, their property and homes.' 

" You remark again, ' After the most active and least needed portion of 

the reserves were embodied under the former law, the latter would allow 

smaller organizations with more limited range of service, for objects of police 

and the pressing contingencies of neighborhood defence. Could these laws be 

22 



338 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

generally acted on, it is believed, as full organizatioTis of the reserve popula- 
tion would be secured for casual needs as would be practicable.' 

" There is not a word in any of this about service as the general rule 
tlirouyhout the State. But every impression looks to local and limited services 
in sudden emei-gencies, such as the sudden incursions of the enemy, and to 
the defence of their own homes and the entrenchments around them, by those 
who live in cities, ' to neighborhood defence,' ' casual raids,' etc., with the 
clear pi-omise to all that, so soon as the emergency had passed they should be 
pei-mitted to return home and attend to their 'ordinary avocations,* their 
' business or domestic engagements,' etc. The troops recollect how this 
promise was kept. 

" But you charge that I had formed nondescript organizations not con- 
forming to the regulations of the provisional army, scant in men and 
abounding in officers, with every variety of obligation for local service, gen- 
erally of the most restricted character, and for the brief period of only six 
months. 

"Each organization formed by me was in conformity to the statutes, 
copies of which you enclosed as the guide for my action, and for the exact 
time designated in your requisition over your own signature. Each had the 
number of men specified in the statutes, and no one of them had a super- 
numerary officer, with my consent, or so far as I know or believe. The requi- 
sition expressly authorized me to accept troops for local defence, of the most 
restricted character, with ' the limitations prescribed in their muster rolls of 
service only at home or at spncijied points of importance.' But while you ex- 
pressly authorized tliis I refused to do it, except in case of companies of me- 
chanics and other workmen in cities — the operatives in factories, and the 
employees of railroads, etc., when the nature of their avocations made it 
actually necessary. In all other cases I refused to accept the companies 
when tendered, if their muster rolU did not cover and bind them to defend, at 
least one-fourth of the whole territory of the State. Many of them covered 
the wliole territory of the State with the conditions of their muster rolls. 
Some complaints were made at my course, because I required more than was 
i-equired by either the acts of Congress, or the requisition of the Secretary of 
War. 

" Another charge is, that when called out ' scarce a decent division of four 
thousand men could be mustered for the field, and then only for six months.' 
Your obliviousness of facts, as well as of records, is indeed remarkable. 
Only those whose muster rolls embraced Atlanta and the territory between it 
and the Tennessee line were called out till near the end of the period for 
which all were enlisted, and you got a division of many more than four 
thousand within that boundary. 

'• The others, over twelve thousand, were at home, engaged in their ' ordi- 
nary avocations,' ready to respond to your call in case of an ' emergency,' or 
' sudden incursion of the enemy.' But you never called for any of them till 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 339 

a short time before the end of the term of their enlistment. Those you then 
called out you never even armed, and it was believed by them that they 
were only assembled for the convenience of the conscript officers, to save 
them the trouble of searching through the country to see if any among them 
were subject to conscription. Nobody pretended that there was any ' emer- 
gency ' or ' sudden incursion of the enemy ' at the time of the last call, in the 
sections of the State they had agreed to defend. I have gone thus fully into 
this record for the purpose of showing the palpable injustice which you 
attempt to do me, and of exposing the flimsy pretext under which you seek 
to defend the bad faith which was exercised by the Government towards the 
gallant men who, by their prompt response, more tlian doubly filled your 
requisition in its letter and spirit. 

" As a last means of escape you say I persistently claimed that they should 
be held and regarded as militia. ' In that case they could not, if dismissed, 
be recalled on emergency as local troops, and this naturally induced their 
detention for the full period of their limited term of service.' I should have 
been greatly obliged if you had given a reason why militia mustered into 
service for the period of six months, with the express promise that they 
should be permitted to remain at home in the pursuit of their 'ordinary 
avocations,' except in ' emei'gencies ' or to meet ' sudden and transient incur- 
sions of the enemj'',' could not receive furloughs and return home between 
'emergencies' and 'sudden and transient incursions. of the enemy,' and re- 
assemble on the recurrence of the emergency. Why could not the same 
men, living in the same district, united for the same purpose, to defend the 
same territory against 'sudden and transient incursions of the enemy,' have 
received furloughs to return home and attend to the pursuit of their ' ordinary 
avocations,' if called militia and commanded by officers appointed as the Con- 
stitution provides, by the State.^, as well as if called local companies, and 
commanded by officers appointeil by the President? What strange magic is 
there about the President's commission which would enable men, organized 
for service under officers holding it, to receive furloughs when not needed 
for service, which the same men, organized for the same service, could not get 
if their officers received their commissions in the constitutional mode from 
the State ? If the same companies, composed of the same officers and men, 
may be temporarily dismissed when not -needed for the service they have 
engaged to render when called by the name 'local companies,' why may this 
not be done when they are called by the name militia ? 

"As no reason can exist for the distinction you attempt to draw as a justi- 
fication of the President's conduct, none was assigned by you. It is simply 
absurd to say that the militia cannot be furloughed and sent home when not 
needed, to be recalled when needed. But for the interruption of our militia 
organization, which grew out of the Conscript Act of Februai-y last, instead 
of ten thousand, I could have sent nearer thirty thousand to Atlanta, to aid 
in its defence. 



340 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

" The Legislature, unfortunately for Georgia, turned over to the President's 
control that part of tlie organized militia within the ages specified in the 
act of Congress and, when the hour of peril came, out of all the large num- 
ber embraced in the act of Congress, and turned over to his control by the 
resolution of the Legislature, he had not a single one at the front with a 
musket in his hands, to aid in the defence of the State. Of all the Confed- 
erate reserves, to which the State was told she might safely look for defence, 
not a man with a musket in his hands was at the front during the whole 
march of the Federal army from Dalton till its triumphant entrance into 
Atlanta. And if action had been delayed until the President called, as 
shown by the date of his call, not a man of all the reserve militia of the 
State would have been there. The Confederate reserves organized were not 
sufficiently numerous to guard the unarmed Federal prisoners in the State, 
and I had to furnish, when their services were much needed at the front, a 
battalion of militia to aid them. 

" The interruption by the State authorities, to which you refer, is entirely 
imaginary. After the decision of the Legislature, your officers were left 
perfectly free to execute the law oF Congress in all its rigor. But if it were 
real, surely the President, with the aid of his large force of officers in this 
State, should have been able to get somebody to the front. A single man 
with a good musket might have rendered some assistance. Or if this, by 
reason of inefficiency, could not be done, if he had ordered his corps of con- 
script officers there, as I ordered the State officers, they were sufficiently 
numerous to have done essential service. For even tliis favor, at that crit- 
ical period, the people of Georgia would have been under great obligations 
to him. 

" I must not forget another ground of the call, as you term it, which was 
that some of these troops (the ten thousand organized militia) had been de- 
tailed for objects not admitted by enrolling officers in the State to be au- 
thorized by Confederate law, and others were claimed as primarily liable, 
or previously subject to Confederate service. This, you say, had 'engen- 
dered controversy,' which it was most desirable to ' anticipate and preclude.' 
As Confederate enrolling officers had denied the right of the State to make 
details, and had claimed certain men whom the Governor held as a part of 
the militia of the State, and as the Governor did not at once yield to the 
pretensions of those Confederate officers, but was disposed to contend for 
the rights of the State, the President, unwilling to allow the controversy, 
determined to relieve the State of her lohde militia, by making requisition for 
it, and taking it all into his own hands, which would ' anticipate and pre- 
clude ' any further controversy ; as the State, having no militia left, need 
have no further controversy about her right to any particular individuals as 
part of it. 

" This new discovery of the President of the mode of settling a contro- 
verted right, and the magnanimity and statesmanship displayed by him in 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 341 

tins affair, cannot be too highly appreciated. By imitating his example in 
future, the stronger party can always make a speedy settlement with the 
weaker, without allowing any unpleasant controversy about rights. 

" Your assertion, that my past action and public expressions have given 
encouragement to our enemies, to the mortification of many patriotic citizens 
of the Confederacy, may be properly disposed of by the single remark, that 
if we may judge of the encouragement of our enemies by the general ex- 
pression of their public journals, the President gave them more delight, hope, 
and encouragement, by his single speech at Macon, than all the past acts 
and public expressions of my life could have done, had I labored constantly 
to aid and encourage them. He who can satisfy the enemy that two-thirds 
of the men who compose our gallant armies are absent from their posts, 
affords them delight and encouragement indeed, as they will no longer 
doubt, if this be true, that the spirit of our people is broken, and that our 
brave defenders can no longer be relied on to sustain our cause in the field. 
All remember the mortification which this speech of the President caused to 
the patriotic citizens of the Confederacy. If it had been true, surely it 
should not have been publicly proclaimed by the President. But I am satis- 
fied it was not true, and that, in making the statement, the President did 
grievous injustice to the brave men who compose our gallant, self-sacrificing 
armies. 

" It has also been agreeable to you to speak of my action as springing from 
a spirit of opposition to the Confederate Government, and animosity to the 
Chief Magistrate. I have but a word of reply to this unjust and ungenerous 
attack. Some men are unable to distinguish between opposition to a gov- 
ernment and unwillingness blindly to endorse all the errors of an adminis- 
tration, or to discriminate between loyalty to a cause and loyalty to their 
master. My loyalty is only due to my country; you can bestow yours where 
your interest or inclinations may prompt. 

" I do not consider that the point you attempt to make about the pay and 
subsistence of the militia, while under the Confederate general commanding 
the department, has in it even a show of plausibility. They were accepted 
by him for the time as an organization, and, while under his control, he has 
the absolute command of them, and the Governor of the State does not exer- 
cise the slightest control over them. What possible pretext for saying that 
he may not order this division subsisted and paid as well as any other division 
under his command? There is just as much reason for saying that a divis- 
ion of Georgians under Gen. Lee should not be subsisted and paid by the 
Confederacy, while under his command, as that this division under Gen. 
Hood should not be subsisted and paid while he commanded them. The 
truth at the bottom of all this is so visible that it cannot be concealed even 
by an attempt to muddy the water. 

" I find the statement emphasized by you, that the Constitution of the Con- 
federate States does not confer on the States the power to keep troops in time 



342 COERESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

of war. As the States were sovereign and possessed all power when they 
formed the Constitution which gave life to the Confederate Government, 
neither that Government nor the Constitution could confer any power on 
the States. They retained all that they did not confer upon it. But admit 
your statement, and what follows? You were obliged to admit in the next 
sentence that the States did reseree that power. Having reserved it, they 
are certainly authorized to exercise it. As you admit, they not only reserved 
the power, but the reservation naturally includes whatever is necessary to 
accomplish the object of it. But you then attempt to explain it away, by 
denying that the reservation means anything, and, in effect, contend that 
the Confederate Government may take from the State the last one of the 
troops which she has reserved the power to keep, without violating the re- 
served rights of the State. In other words, the State has plainly reserved 
the right to keep troops in time of war when actually invaded. But this 
right you, in effect, say is subordinate to the will of the President, who may 
take the last one of them from her whenever he chooses to do so. 

" According to your mode of reasoning, if a State or an individual dele- 
gates certain powers to an agent, and reserves certain other powers, the re- 
served powers are limited by and subordinate to the delegated powers, and 
may be entirely destroyed by them when, in the opinion of the agent, this 
is necessary to enable him to execute, to their fullest extent, the delegated 
powers. In other words, the reserved powers are to be construed strictly, and 
the delegated powers liberally, and the reserved are to yield to the delegated 
whenever there is apparent conflict. I confess I had not understood this to 
be the doctrine of the State Rights or Jeffersonian school. I had been 
taught that the delegated powers are to be construed strictly, and in case of 
a delegation of powers with certain reservations, that the delegated powers 
are limited and controlled by the reserved powers. This well-established 
rule is repudiated by you when it conflicts with the purposes of the Confed- 
erate administration, and you claim that the power reserved by the States to 
keep troops in time of war, when actually invaded, simply means that they 
may keep them till the Confederate Executive chooses to call for and take 
the last one of them out of their control. 

" To justify all this, you are driven to the usual plea of necessity. You 
say it was necessary that the whole militia of Georgia should be in Con- 
federate service, and subject, not to my judgment or disposal, but to the 
control of the constitutional commander-in-chief. 

" I deny that the President is, or ever can be, without the consent of the 
State, the constitutional commander-in-chief of the irliole vniWiia. of the State. 
When we take the whole context together, the Constitution is plain upon 
this point. He is declared to be the commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy of the Confederate States and of the militia of the several States when 
called into actual xeruice of the Confederate States. 

" Congress has power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 343 

laws of the Confederate States, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. 
Congress has power to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining 
the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the 
service of the Confederate States. Then comes the qualification. The 
States reserve the right to keep troops in time of war, when actually invaded. 
If she is not invaded, under provision made by Congress, they may be called 
forth if the emergency requires it. If she is invaded, she may keep such 
part of them as she thinks proper, under her reserved right, and they cannot 
be taken without her consent. The whole case is in a nutshell. Congress 
may provide for calling forth the militia, and for governing suchpart of them 
as are employed in the service of the Confederate States. The President is, 
for the time, commander-in-chief of all who are so employed. And all may 
be so employrd, except such as the State determines to kez-p, by virtue of her 
reserved right in time of war, when actually invaded. These Congress has 
no right to call forth, and no right to provide for governing; and of these 
the President is not the constitutional commander-in-chief, but the Governor 
of the State is, so long as the State keeps them, and she has an unquestion- 
able right to keep them as long as the invasion of her territory lasts. 

"This I understand to be the constitutional right of the State of Georgia. 
By this, as her Executive, I stand, and regard with perfect indifference all 
assaults upon either my loyalty or motives by those who deny this right, or 
seek to wrest it from her to increase their own power or gratify their own 
ambition. 

" A word as to the use I shall make of this militia and of all the troops at 
the command of the State. No sentence in my former letter is an ' incon- 
siderate utterance.' No word in it justifies the construction that I will 
array my State in ' armed antagonism against the Confederacy.' On the 
contrary, I will use the troops to support and maintain all the just rights and 
constitutional powers of the Confederacy to the fullest extent. No State is 
truer to the C(mfe<leracy than Georgia; and none will make greater sacrifices 
to maintain its rights, its just powers, and its independence. The sacrifices 
of her people at home, and the blood of her sons upon the battle field, have 
abundantly established this truth. Hut while I will employ all the force at 
my command to maintain all the constitutional rights of the Confederacy 
and of my State, I shall not hesitate to use the same force to protect the 
same rights against external assaults and internal usurpations. Those who 
imagine themselves to be the Confederacy, and consider only loyalty to 
themselves as loyalty to it, and who recognize in neither the people nor the 
State any rights which conflict with their purposes or future designs, doubt- 
less see in this the ' foreshadowing of a guilty purpose.' It is, to say the 
least of it, a fixed purpose. 

" It is not only my right, but my duty, to uphold the constitutional rights 
and liberties of tlie people of Georgia by force, if necessary, against usurpations 
and abuses of power by the central Government. The militia is, under the 



344 COREESPONDENCE OF GOV. BEOWN 

Constitution, one of the proper instrumentalities for that purpose. There 
is scarcely a single provision in the Constitution for the protection of life, 
liberty,, or property in Georgia, that has not been and is not now constantly 
violated by the Confederate Government through its officers and agents. 

" It has been but a short time since one of the stores of the State of Georgia, 
containing pi'operty, in the peaceable possession of the State, was forcibly 
entered by a Confederate officer and the property taken therefrom by force. 
I had no militia present at the time to repel this invasion of the rights of 
the sovereign State, but should have had them there soon if the property had 
not been restored. 

" A single Confederate provost marshal in Georgia admits that thirty 
citizens and soldiers have been shot by his guard, without his right to shoot 
citizens being questioned till within the last few days, when he was greatly 
enraged that a true bilf for murder should have been found by a grand jury 
against one of them for shooting down a citizen in the streets who offended 
him by questioning his authority over him. Every citizen in the State, both 
man and woman, is arrested in the cars, streets and highways, who presumes 
to travel without a pass. They are arrested without law, and imprisoned at 
pleasure of Government officials. The houses, lands, and effects of the people 
of Georgia are daily seized and appropriated to the use of the Government 
or its agents without the shadow of law, without just compensation, and in 
defiance of the decision of the supreme judicial tribune of the State; and 
her officers of justice are openly resisted by the officers of the Confederate 
States.. The property of the families of soldiers now under arms to sustain 
the Confederacy is forcibly taken from them without hesitation, and appro- 
priated in many cases without compensation. 

' '' In this state of things the militia are necessary to uphold the civil tribu- 
nal of the State, and will be used for that purpose whenever the proper call 
is made by the proper authorities. 

"No military authority. State or Confederate, can be lawfully used for 
any other purpose than to uphold the civil authorities, and so much of it as 
the Constitution of my country has confided to my hands shall be used for 
that purpose, whether civil society, its Constitution and laws shall be in- 
vaded from without or from within. Measured by your standard, this is 
doubtless disloyalty. Tested by mine, it is a high duty to my country, 

"Respectfully, etc., 

" Joseph E. Brown." 



AND THE SECRETAEY OF WAR. 345 



"CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, 
War Departmknt, Richmond, Va., December 13, 18Gi. 



\ 



" HIS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH E. BROWN, 

Governor of GEOuarA, 

Macon, Ga. 

" Sir: — Your letter of the I'lth ult. has been received. In accordance with 
the rule I have prescribed to myself in my correspondence with you, I bhall 
avoid all notice of the observations in your letter which do not in my opin- 
ion form matter proper for official communication; and therefore much of 
your letter will have no response. 

"An act of Congress of the 27th of February, 1861, provided: ' That to 
enable the Government of the Confederate States to maintain its jurisdiction 
over all questions of peace and war, and to provide for the public defence, 
the Pi'esident be, and he is hereby authorized and directed to assume control 
of all military operations in every Stg,te, having reference to or connection 
■with questions between said States, or any of them, and powers foreign to 
them.' On the 6th March of the same year, they empowered the President 
' to employ the militia, military and naval forces of the Confederate States 
to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederute States 
in every portion of the teriitory belonging to each State, and to secure the 
public tranquillity and independence against threatened invasion.' These acts 
of Congress do not exceed the competency of that body under the Constitu- 
tion. They confer plenary powers upon the President to employ all the 
military power of the Confederate States to meet the extraordinary emergen- 
cies that might arise, and which were then foreshadowed. You do not deny 
the existence of the emergency anticipated and provided for by Congress. 
You simply contend that you should employ the militia instead of the Presi- 
dent. That you should conduct some military operations, rather than the 
President, and that Congress judged unwisely in confiding power to him, 
rather than to yourself. In my judgment, these acts of Congress bind you, 
both as a citizen and an officer, and you owe prompt, cordial, and unhesitating 
obedience to them. 

" In stating the parallel case of the conduct of the refractory Governors of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut in the war with Great Britain, during the 
administration of Mr. Madison, I was aware that the former had the support 
of the opinion of the judges of that State, as contained in a letter addressed 
to him, and as cited by you. They had also the support of their State Leg- 
tslatures and of the resolves of the Hartford Convention, composed of dele- 
gates from those and other States. The authority of these different public 
officers and agencies support your Excellency; but the judicial opinions of 
the supreme court of New Y^ork, and of the supreme court of the United 
States, as rendered in the line of their duty in cases before them, and the 
general sentiment of the people and the uniform action of the authorities of 
loyal States, afford no such support. 



346 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

"Maj. Gen. Cobb informs the Department that he has made a patisfactory 
adjustment of this difficulty, and I dismiss the subject without further 
remaik. 

'• In the summer of 1863, it became apparent that unless the population of 
the different States who were not embi-aced in the acts of Congress of the 
16th April and 27th September, 1862, providing for the public defence, 
usually termed Conscription Acts, were organized for service, that the country 
would be exposed to frequent and injurious incursions from the enemy, by 
which it would be devastated before the means of defence could be carried 
to the place of invasion. A proposal for the organization was prepared and 
communicated to the Governors of all the States. This plan was to organize 
all the non-conscript population in companies under the acts of Congress to 
provide for the local defence or special service. These acts provided only 
for voluntary enlistments, and an alternative, or rather an auxiliary propo- 
sition, was presented to facilitate the accomplishment of this leading and 
prominent object. 

"I addressed you on the 6th of June, 1863, a letter on the subject, a tele- 
gram on the 12th, and a second letter on the 19th of the same month. The 
general orders of the department, embodying its views as to the nature of 
these volunteer organizations, and disclosing the details of the measure, were 
published by the Adjutant and Inspector-General, the 22d June, 1863. 
These orders required that those companies should be formed for service 
during the war; that they were not to be called into service except in cases 
of emergency; that they were not to be employed beyond the limits of the 
State ; that when the emergency terminated they were to be dismissed to 
their homes ; that service in those companies would excuse from service as 
militia ; that those companies were preferred to militia organizations ; that 
they were to be armed by the Confederate States as far as necessary, and 
were to be paid by them while in service. A copy of this order is enclosed. 

" These views were disclosed in the letters I have before referred to. The 
extracts you have made from them to defend your conduct do not represent 
the views of the department fairly. 

" In my letter of tlie 6th of June, I state the necessity for organization of 
the non-conscript population ; the many and grave objections to the use of 
the militia ; the su})eriority of the system of defence proposed by voluntary 
organizations for home defence, and the motives that might be addressed to 
the people to adopt that mode of defence. I state in that letter that : ' For 
this (the organization) the legislation of Congress has made a full provision 
by two laws, one entitled An Act to provide for Local Defence and Special 
Service, approved August 21, 1861; the other entitled An Act to authorize 
the formation of Volunteer Companies for Local Defence, approved October 
13, 1862, to which your attention is invited, and of which, as they are 
brief, copies are appended. Under the former of these, if organizations 
could be effected with the limitations presented in the muster rolls of service 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 347 

only at home, or at specified points of importance within the particular 
State, they would be admirably adapted to obtain the desired ends of calling 
out those best qualified for the service ; of employing them only when and 
so long as they might be needed; of having them animated with esprit du 
corps, reliant on each other and their selected oflicers, and of thus securing 
the largest measure of activity and efficiency, perhaps, attainable from other 
than permanent soldiers. After ilie most active and least needed portion of 
the reserves were embodied under the former law, the latter would allow 
smaller organizations with more limited range of service for objects of police 
and the pressing contingencies of neighborhood defence. Could these laws 
be generally acted on, it is believed as full organization of the reserve popu- 
lation would be secured for casual needs as would be practicable.' 

" I closed that letter by saying : ' I am instructed by the President in his 
name to make on you a requisition for five thousand men, to be furnished by 
your State for service therein, unless in the intermediate time a volunteer 
force, organized under the law for local defence and special service, of at least 
an equal number be mustered and reported as subject to iiis call for service 
within your State.' 

" In my telegram of the 12th, I say : ' Your assurance of co-operation is 
gratifying. Organizations under the law of the Provisional Congress are 
preferred, because of their longer terms of duration and greater adaptation 
for ready call on temporary service and then for dismissal to their ordinary 
pursuits.' 

"In my letter of the 19th of June, I repeated the arguments in favor of 
organizations for local defence in preference to ' militia organizations or 
organizations on a basis similar to the militia for a limited period of service.' 
I stated to you that * I did not suppose there would be such difficulties, 
delays, or confusion as you anticipated ; that the process of forming the or- 
ganizations is very simple and familiar to your people as having been gen- 
erally adopted in volunteering for the provisional army. There will be no 
occasion to send on to the department here anything but the muster rolls, 
which, under the regulations to he issufd, may be verified by a judge, justice, 
or colonel of militia. I think, with deference to your opinion, the whole 
matter of prompt and easy accomplishment.' 

" The regulations refen-ed to were published on the 22d of June, 1863. 
They declare their object to be to afford ' instructions as to the method by 
which such organizations may be made, and the privileges they may claim ; ' 
and with these regulations the Act of Congress of August 21, 1861, was 
published, which authorized the President to accept the services of volun- 
teers of such kind and in such proportion as he may deem expedient, to 
serve for such time as he may prescribe, for the defence of exposed places or 
localities, or such special service as he may deem expedient. 

" The general features of these regulations I have already stated. They 
define with exactness the conditions as to time of enlistment, the place uf 



348 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN^ 

service, the duration of their special and particular service upon the Presi- 
dential call. These were- the organizations that you were expected to form, 
and you seem to have entirely overlooked or forgotten the duty that you 
undertook to fulfill. 

" It is not pretended by you that you carried into effect this plan for the 
organization of the State reserves, and that your promised co-operation was 
unproductive of the results anticipated from it. You followed the suggestions 
of your own mind, and did not act, and, so far as this department knows, 
did not attempt to act comformably to the views presented to you. 

" I made no complaint of your failure to do this, nor was the failure made 
the subject of any observation until you assumed the ground of being the 
injured party, from which you railed at the President and the department, 
as wanting in faith to you; while the fact was, if there was any want of 
faith or breach of duty, you alone were the guilty party. I recur to the 
subject now simply to correct the misrepresentation of the conduct of the 
department by your garbled extracts from its correspondence — extracts 
which do not exhibit fairly the subject under consideration. I abstain now 
from imputing your conduct to bad faith to the department, in repelling the 
wanton and reckless assault upon the integrity of the administration of this 
department. 

*' Your remarks upon the patriotism and services of the people of Georgia 
will have no contradiction from me. I fully appreciate both. I have not 
believed that they could be seduced from their fidelity to the Confederate 
States or their duties under their Constitution. I have not supposed that 
they could be betrayed into any desertion of the common cause. The unan- 
imous voice of the Legislature of the State was not required to assure me of 
their truth and loyalty. Ifc has but confirmed the opinion that the seeds of 
baleful jealousies, suspicions, and irritation, that have so industriously been 
scattered among them, have been wholly unproductive of the fruit antici- 
pated. 

" It is to be hoped in the future that all the energy that has been thus em- 
ployed will be diverted to the legitimate object of achieving the independence 
of the Confederate States, securing the peace and tranquillity of the Confed- 
eracy, and promoting thereby the true greatness of Georgia. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" James A. Seddon, 
" Secretary of War." 

"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 

Macon, Ga., Jan. 6, 1865, 
"HON. JAMES A. SEDDON, SECRETARY OF WAR: 

" Sir: — It becomes my duty to notice your communication of 13th December, 
which reached me a few days since. 

" After citing the Acts of Congress of 28th February and the 6th March, 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 349 

1861, conferring power upon the President to assunae control of military 
operations in the States and to call forth the militia, etc., you declare that 
Congress in passing these Acts did not exceed its competency under the Con- 
stitution, and you then insist on a construction of these Acts which denies 
the right reserved by the States to keep troops la time of war, and which 
confers upon the President the power to call upon one State for a class of 
her population which are not subject under any law of Congress to do mil- 
itary duty, and for which he makes no similar requisition upon any other 
State. 

" The Acts which you quote are not properly susceptible of any such con- 
struction as you are obliged to place upon them to make tliem serve your 
purpose. If they were, there could be no doubt upon the mind of any lawyer 
who understands the rudiments of constitutional law that Congress had no 
power or authority to pass tliem. No candid lawyer will insist for a moment 
that an Act of Congress can take from the States the right which they have 
plainly reserved iit the Constitution to keep troops in time of war, or that the 
President has any power or control over any troops which a State may so 
keep, or that he can justly and legally make requisition for them, or that he 
has any legal or just grounds of complaint if a State refuses to turn them 
over to him if he should transcend his legal authority by making the lequi- 
sition. Nor will any lawyer insist that the President has any power to make 
requisition for militia which Congress luis not made provision for ^organizing,' 
or for men or boys not subject to militia duty under the laws of Congress. 
As these Acts of Congress could confer upon the President no poweis which 
are denied to him by the Constitution, and as his late requisition upon the 
Executive of this State was in clear violation of her reserved rights under 
the Constitution, I am surprised that yoti should attempt to justify this 
usurpation of undelegated powers by a resort to congressional action as 
directory to the President to violate the rights of the States. 

" In your former letter you declared that my refusal to fill this requisition 
of the President was analogous in ' all particulars ' to the conduct of the 
Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut in the last war with Great 
Britain in refusing to fill the requisition made upon them by the President 
of the United States. In my answer, I showed too conclusiveJy for reply, 
that the cases were not analogous in any particular. Without attempting to 
make good your assertion, or to controvert a single position in my argument, 
or to trace the analogy in a single particular, you again allude to the subject 
in your last letter by saying: 'In stating the parallel case of the conduct of 
the refractory Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut,' etc. Now no 
on6 knew better than yourself that the cases were in no degree parallel and 
that you could neither trace ih.Q parallel lines nor point out the analogy. 

" To avoid a misstatement contained in your former letter that ' the judicial 
tribunals determined adversely to the pretensions of these Governors,' yon 
say you were aware that the former (the Governor of Massachusetts) had 



350 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

the support oFthe opinion of the judges of that State and of the Legislatures 
of those States, etc. ; and that the authority of these supports me in my posi- 
tion. Here again you are as incorrect as I have shown you to be in almost 
eve]'y important statement which has been made by you. There is nothing 
in the opinion of the judges of the supreme court of Massachusetts sustain- 
ing the Governor of that State which gives the slightest support to my posi- 
tion, or that has the least bearing upon the controversy between us. What 
were the points decided by that opinion of the court? They were substan- 
tially the following : 

" 1. That when the President made a requisition upon the Governor of a 
State for the militia to repel threatened invasion, it was the right of the 
Governor to judge whether the emergency existed. He decided that it did not. 

"2. That when the militia were called out under a requisition from the 
President, no Federal officer but the President in person had the right to 
command them. These were the positions of the Governor of Massachusetts, 
and the opinion of the judges sustained him. 

"Neither of these questions has arisen in this discussion. I have not 
denied the existence of the exigency, but foresaw it and had the reserve 
militia in the field in battle with the enemy months before the President seems 
to have seen it, at least months before he realized it to an extent to cause 
him to make the requisition. 

" I have not raised the question as to the right of a Confederate officer 
other than the President in person, to command this militia so called out by 
me while in service. On the contrary, I had placed them under the com- 
mand of a Confederate general long before the requisition was made. 
With these facts before you, a little reflection cannot fail to show you how 
much mistaken you are when you make the assertion that the decision of the 
judges of the supreme court of Massachusetts, or of the Legislatures of 
those two States, sustains my course or any position I have taken. As there 
is neither analogy nor parallel between the cases cited by you and my own 
case, no decision sustaining the Governors in those cases can either sustain 
or condemn my course upon an entirely different state of facts and circum- 
stances. 

" But you say the judicial opinions of the supreme court of New York, and 
of the supreme court of the United States as rendered in the line of their 
duty, afford no such support. As you have not shown how the action of the 
Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut, or the correctness of their 
position could have come judicially before the supreme court of New York, 
or the supreme court of the United States ; and as you have not been able to 
cite any case in which the question of the conduct of those Governors was 
ever before either of said courts, I am left to suppose that you are, as I have 
shown you to be in so many instances, again unfortunate in your statement 
of facts, and that in attempting to sustain an erroneous statement in your 
other letter, you have added another to former mistakes. 



AND THE SECRET AEY OF WAR. 351 

"As an excuse for dismissing the subject without further attempt to sus- 
tain your position, you remark that Major-General Cobb informs the depart- 
ment that he has made a satisfactory adjustment of this difficulty. While 
there has been perfect harmony between General Cobb and myself in mili- 
tary matters from the commencement of Sherman's advance upon Atlanta 
to the present time, as there has been between Generals Johnston, Hood, 
Beauregard and mjself ; there has been no adjustment whatever between me 
and General Cobb of what you are pleased to term ' this difficulty.' I have 
neither by word nor act done anything to recognize the right of the Presi- 
dent to make this requisition, or to admit the obligation of the Governor to 
fill it. I have stood in i-eference to General Cobb, as I have towards you and 
the President, upon the reserved rights of the State, and have refused to re- 
linquish the control of the State over her reserved militia while she deter- 
mines to keep them, or to fill a x-equisition which the President had no right to 
make. I am happy to find that upon reflection you seem to see your error, 
and are prepared to accept this as a satisfactory adjustment of a controversy 
which you have unjustly provoked, and in which you cannot sustain yourself 
upon any known principle of reason or law. 

"You devote a greater part of your letter to another attempt to justify 
your bad faith to the Georgia troops called out under the President's requisi- 
tion of 6th June, 1863, and to prove, contrary to the plain language of the 
requisition, that they were called for during the war. You complain of what 
you call my ' garbled extracts,' and you quote extensively from the requisition, 
but you are particularly careful to so ' garble ' your own extracts as not to 
quote that essential part of it twice stated in the letter, as I have already 
shown, that they were required only for six months. It was upon this requisi- 
tion, with the two Acts of Congress, which you sent with it as the guide for 
my conduct, that I promised co-operation with you in the organization. The 
promise was redeemed both in letter and spirit, and your call for eight thou- 
sand men (not Jioe thousind as you now erroneously state in your last letter) 
was met with more than double the number required, organized in strict ac- 
cordance with the plain language of the requisition and the Acts of Congress 
on that subject. 

" As candor and truth at least are expected of one occupying your posi- 
tion, it is painful to witness the shifts to which you resort to do injustice to 
my State, and to misrepresent the conduct of her Executive in a matter 
where he more than doubly filled your requisition. 

" I am now favored by you with a copy of a general order issued by Adju- 
tant-General Cooper weeks after the requisition was made, which I do not 
recollect that I ever saw till I received your letter, and you complain that I 
did not carry out your views as expressed in that oi'der. I obey no orders 
from your department ; nor was this order furnished to me when you made 
the requisition, or during the organization of the troops, with even a request 
that I conform to it. I was asked by you to organize the troops in accord- 



352 CORRESPONDENCE O'F GOV. BROWN 

ance with your letter containing the requisition and the two Acts of Congress, 
of which you enclosed copies for six months' service, with the pledges con- 
tained in your letter to which I referred in my last letter, that they should 
only be called out for sudden emergencies, etc. This I did on my part, and 
you refused to redeem the pledges made on your part. This is the whole 
case, and I here dismiss this part of the subject with my regrets that justice 
to myself and the large number of citizens of my State who suffered unneces- 
sarily by your action, has made it a duty for me to expose your bad faith 
and the misstatements to which you have resorted to sustain an interpretation 
of your requisition which its plain language unquestionably precludes. 

" Bv the expression in your letter that: * It (the unanimous voice of the 
Leo'islature of this State) has but confirmed the opinion that the seeds of 
baleful jealousies, suspicions and irritation that have so indastripusly been 
scattered among them (the people) have been wholly unproductive of the 
fruits anticipated,' I am left to conclude that in your disingenuous effort by 
insinuation to call in question my motives in protesting against the Presi- 
dent's usurpations and abuses of power, you, as is your habit, base your as- 
sertion upon an assumption of facts which does not exist. The Legislature 
of this State at the late session passed no resolutions, and expressed no 
unanimous voice upon any question connected with the conduct of the Ad- 
ministration of which you are a member, nor did they utter in its behalf 
any voice of approbation. 

" While the people of this State are true and loyal to our cause, they are 
not unmindful of the great principles of Constitutional Liberty and State 
Sovereignty upon which we entered into this struggle, and they will not hold 
guiltless those in power who, while charged with the guardianship of the 
liberties of the people, have subverted and trampled personal liberty under 
foot, and disregarded the rights of private property, and the judicial sanc- 
tions, by which, in all free governments, they are protected. 

" The course pursued by the administration towards Georgia, in her late 
hour of extreme peril, has shown so conclusively as to require no further ar- 
gument or illustration, the wisdom of the reservation made by the States, in 
the Constitution, of the right to keep troops in time of war. Georgia has 
furnished over one hundred thousand of her gallant sons to the armies of 
the Confederacy. The great body of these men was organized into regi- 
ments and battalions of infantry and artillery, which have been sustained 
by recruits from home, from month to month, to the extent of our ability. 
Those who survive of these regiments and battalions have become veterans 
in the service, who, if permitted, would have returned to their State, and 
rendered Sherman's march across her territory and the escape of his army 
alike impossible. I asked that this be allowed, if assistance could not be 
otherwise afforded. It was denied us, and the State has been passed over 
by a large army of the enemy. Hundreds of miles of her railroads have been 
for the present rendered useless. A broad belt of her territory nearly four 



AND THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 353 

hundred miles in length, has been devastated. Within this belt most of the 
public property, including several court houses with the public records, and 
a vast amount of private property, including many dwellings, gin houses, 
much cotton, etc., have been destroyed. The city of Atlanta, with several 
of the villages of the State, has been burnt ; the capital has been occupied 
and desecrated by the enemy, and Savannah, the seaport city of the State, 
is now in his possession. During the period of Sherman's march from At- 
lanta to Milledgeville, there was not one thousand men of all the veteran 
infantry regiments and battalions of Georgians, now in Confederate service, 
upon the soil of this State. Nor did troops from otlier States fill their 
places. 

" Thus ' abandoned to her fate ' by the President, Georgia's best reliance 
was her reserve militia and State line, whom she had organized and still 
keeps, as by the Constitution she has a right to do. Without them, much 
more property must have been destroyed, and the city of Macon, so impor- 
tant to the State and Confederacy, must have shared the fate of Atlanta and 
Savannah, while Augusta, with the small Confederate force by which she 
was saved, divided with Macon, must also have fallen. 

" These troops whom Georgia keeps have not only acted with distinguished 
gallantry upon many bloody battle-fields upon the soil of their own State, 
but they have, when an important service could be rendered by them, 
marched into the interior of other States. The noble conduct of the Troup 
County militia in their march to Pollard, Alabama, to aid in the protection 
of the people and property of that State against the devastations of the 
enemy, and the heroic valor displayed by Maj.-Gen. G. W. Smith and 
part of his command then with him at Honey Hill, in South Carolina, where 
he won — with the Georgia militia, her State line and a small number of 
gallant Confederate troops, most of whom were Georgians— one of the most 
signal victories of the war in proportion to the number engaged, fully attest 
the correctness of my assertion in their behalf. 

*• In view of these facts, with the late bitter experience of the people of 
this State fresh in his recollection, the Georgia statesman must indeed be a 
blind worshipper of the President who would advocate the policy of turning 
over to his control, to be carried out of the State at his bidding, old men and 
boys not subject under the laws of Congress to military service, and of a 
class not required by him of any other State. 

" I cannot close this communication without noticing certain expressions 
in your letter which are not unfrequently used by persons in authority at 
Richmond, such as 'refractory Governors,' 'loyal States,' etc. Our people 
have become accustomed to these imperial utterances from those who wield 
the central despotism at Washington, but such expressions are so utterly at 
variance with the principles upon which we entered into this contest in 1861 
that it sounds harshly to our ears to have the officers of a government, which 
is the agent or creature of the States, discussing the loyalty and disloyalty 
23 



354 COKEESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN. 

of the sovereign States to their central agent — the loyalty of the creator to 
the creature — which lives and moves and has its being only at the will of the 
States ; and to hear tbeir praise of the Governors of sovereign States for 
their subserviency, or their denunciation of those not subservient as ' refrac- 
tory.' If our liberties are lost the fatal result will not be properly chargeable 
to disloyal Slates or ' refractory Governors ; ' but it will grow out of the be- 
trayal by those high in Confederate authority of the sacred principles of the 
Constitution which they have sworn to defend. 

" Had some officials labored as successfully for the public good as they 
have assiduously to concentrate all power in the Confederate Government 
and to place the liberty and property of every citizen of the Confederacy sub- 
ject to the caprice and control of the President, the country would not have 
been doomed to witness so many sad reverses. Nor would we now be bur- 
I dened to supportithe vast hoard of supernumerai-y officers and political favor- 
ites, who are quartered upon us to eat out our substance while they avoid 
duty and danger in the field, having little other duty to perform but to en- 
dorse, indiscriminately and publicly, by newspaper communications and 
otherwise, every act of the President whether right or wrong ; and to recon- 
cile the people by every means in their power to the constant encroachments 
which are made upon their ancient usages, customs, and liberties. 

" If all these favorites of power who are able for active duty and whose 
support in the style in which they live, while all around them is misery and 
want, costs the people millions of dollars, were sent to the field and compelled 
to do their part in battle, the President would have no reason to make illegal 
requisitions upon this State for her old men and boys, who are not subject to 
his control under any law. State or Confederate ; but he would soon be able 
by heavy I'einforcements to fill the depleted ranks of the armies of the Con- 
federacy. As the President is clothed with all the power necessary to com- 
pel these political favorites to shoulder arms and aid in driving back the 
invader, the subject is respectfully commended to your consideration as well 
worthy of energetic action. 
"^ '^ " I am, very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"Joseph E. Brown." 



CHAPTER XI. 

COREESPONDENCE OF PkESIDENT Da.YIS AND GOVERNOR 

Brown upon Conscription. 

In the spring of 1862, upon the subject of raising 
troops, there sprung up a fundamental difference of 
opinion between President Davis and Governor Brown. 
So long as volunteer forces were raised in the States by 
the authority of the President, or he made requisition on 
the Governor for them, there was no serious or exciting 
issue between them. But when, as will appear, in order 
to force the citizen soldiers of other States, which, unlike 
Georgia, appeared to be tardy in responding to his calls, 
the Congress, at the request of the President, attempted 
to place all within given ages subject to summary con- 
scription, the execution of the law within this State 
gave rise to a severely critical correspondence. It relates 
to and contains the matters that tended in no small part, 
in the sequel, to the failure of the Confederacy. It was 
a difference in opinion between men who were each in- 
tent on independence for the South, which will appear in 
the letters of each. To avoid all appearance of unfair- 
ness, we dispense with abbreviations, and set forth their 
entire letters. 



« EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
MiLLKDGEViLLE, Ga., April 22, 1862 



.} 



"HIS EXC ELLENC Y JEFFERSON DAVIS, 

Richmond, Virginia : 
"Deai^ Sir : — So soon as I received from the Secretary of War official notice 
of the passage by Congress of the Conscription Act, placing in the military 
service of the Confederate States all white men between the ages of 18 and 



356 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

35 years, I saw that it was impossible for me longer to retain in the field the 
Georgia State troops, without probable collision and conflict with the Con- 
federate authorities, in the face of the enemy. I, therefore, acquiesced in 
the necessity which compelled me to transfer the State forces to the com- 
mand of the Confederate general at Savannah, and tendered to General 
Lawton, who commands the Military District of Georgia, not only the con- 
scripts in the State army, but also those not conscripts, for the unexpired 
term of their enlistment. General Lawton accepted the command with the 
assurance tbat he would interfere as little as possible with the company and 
regimental organizations of the troops. This assurance, I trust, the Gov- 
ernment will permit him to carry oyt in the same spirit of liberality in which 
it was given. If the State regiments are broken up and the conscripts be- 
longing to them forced into other organizations against their consent it will 
have a very discouraging effect. If the regiments and companies were 
preserved, and permission given to the officers to fill up their ranks by re- 
cruits, there would be no doubt of their ability to do so ; and I think 
they have a just right to expect this privilege. 

" Georgia has promptly responded to every call made upon her by you for 
troops, and has always given more than you asked ; she now has about 
60,000 in the field. Had you called upon her Executive for 20,000 more, 
(if her just quota,) they would have been furnished without delay. The plea 
of necessity, so fai', at least, as this State is concerned, cannot be set up in 
defence of the Conscription Act. 

"When ttie Government of the United States disregarded and attempted 
to trample upon the rights of the States, Georgia set its power at defiance 
and seceded from the Union, rather than submit to the consolidation of all 
power in the hands of the central or Federal government. 

" The Conscription Act not only puts it in the power of the Executive of 
the Confederacy to disorganize her troops, which she was compelled to call 
into the field, for her own defence, in addition to her just quota, because of 
the neglect of the Confederacy to place sufficient troops upon her coast for 
her defence — which would have required less than half the number she has 
sent to the field — but also places it in his power to destroy her State gov- 
ernment by disbanding her law-making power. 

"The Constitution of this State makes every male citizen who has attained 
the age of 21 years eligible to a seat in the House of Representatives of the 
General Assembly, and every one who has attained the age of 25 eligible 
to a seat in the Senate. There are a large number of the members of the 
General Assembly between the ages of 18 and 35. They are white citizens 
of the Confederate States, and there is no statute in the State, and I am 
aware of none in the Confederate States code, which exempts them from 
military duty. They, therefore, fall within the provisions of the Conscription 
Act. It may become necessary for me to convene the General Assembly in 
extra session ; or, if not, the regular session will commence the first Wedues- 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCEIPTION. 357 

day in November. When the members meet at the Capitol, if not sooner, 
they might be claimed as conscripts by a Confederate officer, and arrested 
with a view to carry them to some remote part of the Confederacy, as re- 
cruits, to fill up some company now in service. They have no military 
power, and conld only look to the Executive of the State for military pro- 
tection ; and I cannot hesitate to say that, in such case, 1 should use all the 
remaining military force of the State in defence of a co-ordinate constitu- 
tional branch of the government. I can, therefore, permit no enrolmeiit of 
the members of the General Assembly under the Conscription Act. The 
same is true of the judges of the supreme and superior courts, should any 
of them fall within the ages above mentioned; and of the secretaries of the 
Executive departments ; the heads and necessary clerks of the other de- 
partments of the State government ; and the tax collectors and receivers 
of the different counties, who ai-e now in the midst of their duties, and are 
not permitted by law to supply substitutes, and whose duties must be per- 
formed, or the revenues of the State cannot be collected. The same remark 
applies to the staff of the Commander-in-Chief. There is no statute exempt- 
ing them from military duty, for the reason that they are at all times sub- 
ject to the command of the Governor, and are not expected to go into the 
ranks. 

" The State's quartermaster, commissary, ordnance and engineers' depart- 
ments fall within the same rule. The major-generals, brigadier-generals, 
and other officers of the militia, would seem to be entitled to like consider- 
ation. 

"Again, the Western & Atlantic Railroad is the property of the State, 
and is under the control and management of the Governor. It is a source of 
revenue to the State and its successful management is a matter of great 
military importance, both to the State and the Confederacy. I now have an 
efficient force of officers and workmen upon the road, and must suspend opera- 
tions if all between 18 and 35 are taken away from the road. 

" I would also invite your attention to the further fact that the State 
owns and controls the Georgia Military Institute at Marietta, and now has 
in the Institute over 125 cadets, a large proportion of whom are within 
the age of conscripts. If they are not exempted, this most important insti- 
tution is broken up. I must not omit, in this connection, the students of 
the State University, and of the other colleges of the State. These valuable 
institutions of learning must also be suspended if the law is enforced against 
the students. 

" I would, also, respectfully call your attention to the further fact that in 
portions of our State where the slave population is heavy, almost the entire 
white male population capable of bearing arms except the overseers on the 
plantations are now in the military service of the Confederacy. Most of 
these overseers are over 18 and under 35. If they are carried to the field 
thousands of slaves must be left without overseers, and their labor not only 



358 COEEESPONDENCE OF PEESIDENT DAYIS 

lost at a time when there is great need of it in the production of provisions 
and supplies for our armies, but the peace and safety of helpless women and 
children must be imperilled for want of protection against bands of idle 
slaves, who must be left to roam over the country without restraint. 

" It is also worthy of remark, that a large proportion of our best mechanics, 
and of the persons engaged in the various branches of manufacturing now 
of vital importance to the success of our cause, are within the ages which 
subject them to the provisions of the Conscription Act. 

" My remark that I cannot permit the enrolment of such State officers as 
are necessary to the existence of the State governnTent, and the working 
of the State road, does not, of course, apply to persons engaged in the other 
useful branches of industry considered of paramount importance, but I 
must ask, in justice to the people of this State, that such exemptions 
among these classes be made as the public necessities may require. 

"As you are well aware, the military operations of the Government cannot 
be carried on without the use of all our railroads, and the same necessity 
exists for the exemption of all other railroad officers and workmen which ex- 
ists in the case of the State road. 

" There are doubtless other important interests not herein enumerated 
which will readily occur to you, which must be kept alive or the most serious 
consequences must ensue. 

" The Constitution gives to Congress the power to provide for organizing, 
arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as 
may be employed in the service of the Confederate States, reserving to the 
Slates, respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training 
the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. The Conscrip- 
tion Act gives the President the power to enroll the entire militia of the 
States between 18 and 35, and takes from the States their constitutional 
^__right to appoint the officers and to train the militia. 

" While this Act does not leave to the States the appointment of a single 
officer to command the militia employed in service of the Confederate States 
under its provisions, it places it in the power of the President to take a 
major-general of the militia of a State, if he is not 35 years of age, and 
place him in the ranks of the Confederate States army, under the command of 
a 3d lieutena.ut appointed by the President, and to treat him as a deserter if 
he refuses to obey the call and submit to the command of the subaltern 
y placed over him. 

'' I do not wish to be understood, in any portion of this letter, to refer to the 
intentions of the President, but only to the extraordinary powers given him 
by the Act. 
^""^ "This Act not only disorganizes the military system of all the States, but 
consolidates almost the entire military power of the States in the Confederate 
Executive with the appointment of the officers of the militia, and enables him 
at his pleasure to cripple or destroy the civil government of each State, by 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 359 

arresting and carrying into the Confederate service the officers charged by 
the State Constitution with the administration of the State government. _ 

" I notice by a perusal of the Conscription Act that the President may, with 
the consent of the Governors of the respective States, employ State officers in 
the enrolment of the conscripts. While I shall throw no obstacle in the 
way of the general enrolment of persons embraced within the Act, except as 
above stated, I do not feel that it is the duty of the Executive of a State to 
employ actively the officers of the State in the execution of a law which vir- 
tually strips the State of her constitutional military powers, and, if fully ex- 
ecuted, destroys the legislative department of her government, making even 
the sessions of her General Assembly dependent upon the will of the Confed- 
erate Executive. I therefore respectfully decline all connection with the pro- 
posed enrolment, and propose to reserve the question of the constitutionality 
of the Act, and its binding force upon the people of this State, for their con- 
sideration at a time when it may less seriously embarrass the Confederacy in 
the prosecution of the war. 

" You will much oblige by informing me of the extent to which you pro- 
pose making exemptions, if any, in favor of the interests above mentioned, 
and such others as you may consider of vital importance. The question is 
one of great interest to our people, and they are anxious to know your pleas- 
ure in the premises. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"Joseph E. Brown." 



« Richmond, April 28, 1862. 
" TO HIS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH E. BROWN, 

" Governor of the State of Georgia : 

" Dear Sir: — I have received your letter of the 22d inst., informing me of 
your transfer of the Geoi'gia State troops to General Lawton, commanding 
Confederate forces at Savannah — -suggesting that there be as little interfer- 
ence as possible on the part of the Confederate authoi-ities with the present 
organization of those troops — and mentioning various persons and classes as 
proper subjects for exemption from military service under the provisions of 
an ' Act to further provide for the public defence,' approved on the 16th 
inst. 

" I enclose copies of the Act for receiving State troops tendered, as organized, 
and of the' Exemption Act. By the first, interference with the present or- 
ganization of companies, squadrons, battalions, or regiments, tendered by 
Governors of States, is specially disclaimed. By the other, exemptions are 
made which explain (satisfactorily, I trust,) the policy of Congress with re- 
gard to the persons and interests you specify. 

" The constitutionality of the Act you refer to as the ' Conscription Bill ' 
is clearly not derivable from the power to call out the militia, but from that 



360 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

to raise armies. With regard to the mode of officering the troops now called 
into the service of the Confederacy, the intention of Congress is to me, as to 
you, to be learned from its Acts ; and from the terms employed, it would 
seem that the policy of election by the troops themselves is adopted by Con- 
gress. 

*' With great regard, very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"Jefferson Davis." 

"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
MiLLEDGEViLLE, Ga., May 9, 1862. 
"HIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS: 

" Dear Sir : — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of 
the 28th ult., in reply to my letter to you upon the subject of the Conscrip- 
tion Act. I should not trouble you with a reply were it not that principles 
are involved of the most vital character, upon the maintenance of which, in 
my opinion, depend not only the rights and the sovereignty of the States, but 
the very existence of State government. 

" While I am always happy as an individual to render you any assistance 
in my power in the discharge of the laborious and responsible duties assigned 
you, and while I am satisfied you will bear testimony that I have never, as 
the Executive of this State, failed in a single instance to furnish all the men 
and more than you have called for and to assist you with all the other means 
at my command, I cannot consent to commit the State to a policy which is in 
my judgment subversive of her sovereignty and at war with all the principles 
for the support of which Georgia entered into this revolution. 

" It may be said that it is no time to discuss constitutional questions in 
the midst of revolution, and that State rights and State sovereignty must 
yield for a time to the higher law of necessity. If this be a safe principle of 
action it cannot certainly apply till the necessity is shown to exist ; and I 
apprehend it would be a dangerous policy to adopt were we to admit that 
those who are to exercise the power of setting aside the Constitution are to 
be the judges of the necessity for so doing. But did the necessity exist in 
this case? Tiie Conscription Act cannot aid the Government in increasing 
its supply of arms or provisions, but can only enable it to call a larger number 
of meti into the field. The difficulty has never been to get men. The States 
have already furnished the Government more than it can arm, and have from 
their own means armed and equipped very large numbers for it. Georgia 
has not only furnished more than you have asked, and armed and equipped 
from her own treasury a large proportion of those she has sent to the field, 
but she stood ready to furnish promptly her quota (organized as the Consti- 
tution provides) of any additional number called for by the President. 

" I beg leave again to invite your attention to the constitutional question 
involved. You say in your letter that the constitutionality of the Act is 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 3G1 

clearly not derivable from the power to call out the militia but from that to 
raise armies. Let us examine this for a moment. The 8th section of the 
1st Article of the Constitution defines the powers of Congress. The 12th 
paragraph of that section declares that Congress ' shall have power to raise 
and support armies.' Paragraph fifteen gives Congress power to provide for 
calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States, sup- 
press insurrections, and repel invasions. Paragraph sixteen gives Congi'ess 
power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia and for 
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Con- 
federate States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, 
and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed 
by Congress. 

" These grants of power all relate to the same subject matter and are all 
contained in the same section of the Constitution, and, by a well known rule 
of construction, must be taken as a whole and construed together. 

"It would seem quite clear that by the grant of power to Congi-ess to raise 
and support armies, without qualification, the framers of the Constitution 
intended the regular armies of the Confederacy and not armies composed 
of the whole militia of all the States. If all the power given in the three 
paragraphs above quoted is in fact embraced in the first in the general 
words to raise armies, then the other two paragraphs are mere surplusage and 
the framers of the Constitution were guilty of the folly of incorporating into 
the instrument unmeaning phrases. When the States, by the 16th para- 
graph, expressly and cai-efuUy reserved to themselves the right to appoint 
the officers of the militia when employed in the service of the Confederate 
States, it was certainly never contemplated that Congress had power, should 
it become necessary, to call the whole militia of the State into the service of 
the Confederacy, to direct that the President should appoint (commission^ 
all the officers of the militia thus called into service, under the general lan- 
guage contained in the previous grant of power to raise armies. If this can 
be done, the very object of the State in reserving the power of appointing 
the officers is defeated, and that portion of the Constitution is not only a 
nullity, but the whole military power of the States, and the entire control of 
the militia, with the appointment of the officers, is vested in the Confederate 
Government, whenever it chooses to call its own action 'raising an army,' 
and not 'calling forth the militia.' Is it fair to conclude that the States 
intended that their reserved powers should be defeated in a matter so vital 
to constitutional liberty, by a mere change in the use of terms to designate 
the act? Congress shall have power to raise armies. How shall it be done? 
The answer is clear. In conformity to the provisions of the Constitution 
which expi'essly provides that, when the militia of the States are called forth 
to repel invasions, and employed in the service of the Confederate States, 
(which is now the case,) the States shall appoint the officers. If this is 
done, the army is raised as directed by the Constitution, and the reserved 



362 COERESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

rights of tlie States are respected; but if the officers of the militia, when 
called forth, are appointed by the President, the army composed of the 
militia is not raised as directed by the Constitution, and the reserved rights 
of the States are disregarded. The fathers of the Republic, in 1787, showed 
the utmost solicitude on this very point. In the discussions in the convention 
upon the adoption of this paragraph in the Constitution of the United States, 
which we have copied and adopted without alteration, Mr. Ellsworth said : 
' The whole authority over the militia ought by no means to be taken away 
from the States, whose consequence would pine away to nothing after such 
a sacrifice of power.' In explanation of the power which the committee, 
who reported this paragraph to the convention, intended by it to delegate to 
the general government, when the militia should be employed in the service 
of that government, Mr. King, a member of the committee, said: 'By 
orgaiiiz'mg. the committee meant proportioning the officers and men ; by 
arming, specifying the kind, size and calibre of arms ; by (liaciplining, pre- 
scribing the manual exercise, evolutions, etc. 

" Mr. Gerry objected to the delegation of the power, even with this ex- 
planation, and said : ' This power in the United States, as explained, is mak- 
ing the States drill sergeants.' He had as lief let the citizens of Massa- 
chusetts be disarmed, as to take the command from the States and subject 
them to the General Legislature. 

"Mr. Madison observed that '■arming, as explained, did not extend to 
furnishing arms, nor the term disciplining, to penalties and courts-martial for 
enforcing them. 

" After the adoption by the convention of the first part of the clause, Mr, 
Madison moved to amend the next part of it, so as to read 'reserving to the 
States respectively the appointment of the officers under the rank of general 
officers' 

" Mr. Sherman considered this as absolutely inadmissible. He said that 
' if the people should be so far asleep as to allow the most influential officers 
of the militia to be appointed by the general government, every man of dis- 
cernment would rouse them by sounding the alarm to them.' 

" Upon Mr. Madison's proposition, Mr. Gerry said : ' Let us at once 
destroy the State governments, have an Executive for life, or hereditary, and 
a proper Senate, and then there would be some consistency in giving full 
powers to the general government; but as the States are not to be abolished, 
he wondered at the attempts that were made to give powers inconsistent 
with their existence. He warned the convention against pushing the experi- 
ment too far.' 

" Mr. Madison's amendment to add to the clause the words ' under the rank 
of general officers,' was voted down by a majority of eight States against 
three, according to the 'Madison Papers,' from which the above extracts are 
taken, and by nine States against two, according to the printed journals of 
the convention. The reservation in the form in which it now stands in the 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 363 

Constitution, 'reserving to the States the appointment of the ofScers ' when 
the mihtiaare employed in the service of the Confederacy, as -well the gen- 
eral officers as those under that grade, was then adopted unanimously by the 
convention. 

" At the expense of wearying your patience, I have been thus careful in 
tracing the history of this clause of the Constitution, to show that it was the 
clear understanding of those who originated this pait of the fundamental 
law, that the States should retain their power over their militia, even while in 
the service of the Confederacy, by retaining the appointment of a// <^e officers. 

"In practice, the government of the United States, among other numerous 
encroachments of power, had usurped to itself the power which the conven- 
tion, after mature deliberation, had expressly denied to it, to wit, the power 
of appointing the general officers of the militia when employed in the service 
of the general government. 

"But even that government had never attempted to go to the extent of 
usurping the power to appoint the field and company officers. If the framers 
of the Constitution were startled at the idea of giving the appointment of 
the general officers to the general government, and promptly rejected it, how 
would they have met a proposition to give the appointment of all the 
OFFICERS, down to the lowest lieutenant, to it? 

"But you say, 'with regard to the mode of officering the troops now called 
into the service of the Confederacy, the intention of Congress is to be learned 
from its acts, and from the terms employed it would seem that the policy of 
election by the troops themselves is adopted by Congress.' 

"I confess I had not so understood it, without very essential qualification. 
It is true, the twelve-months men who re-enlist have a right, within forty 
days, to re-organize and elect their officers. 

"But if I understood the act, judging from the terms used, all vacancies 
which occur in the old regiments are to be filled, not by election, but by the 
President, by promotion, down to the lowest commissioned officer, whose 
vacancy alone is filled by election, and even this rule of promotion may be set 
aside by the President at any time, under circumstances mentioned in the 
act, and he may appoint any one he pleases to fill the vacancy, if, in his 
opinion, the person selected is distinguished for skill or valor; and tlie com- 
mission in either and all the cases mentioned must be issued by the 
President. 

"Quite a number of Georgia regiments are in for the war whose officers 
hold commissions from the Executive of the State ; but even in these regi- 
ments, under the act, every person appointed to fill any vacancy which may 
hereafter occur, must, it would seem, hold his commission, not from the 
State, but from the President. 

" But admit that Congress, by its acts, intended to give the troops in every 
case the right to elect their officers (which has not been the established 
practice, as you have commissioned many persons to command as field of- 



364 CORRESPONDENCE OP PRESIDENT DAVIS 

ficers without election,) this does not relieve the acts of Congress from the 
charge of violation of the Constitution. The question is not as to the mode 
of selecting the person who is to have the commission, but as to the govern- 
ment which has, under the Constitution, the right to issue the commission. 
The States, in the exercise of their reserved power to appoint the officers, 
may select them by election, or may permit the Executive to select them ; 
but the appointment rests upon the commission, as there is no complete ap- 
pointment till the commission is issued, and, therefore, the government that 
issues the commission exercises the appointing power and controls the 
appointment. 

" I am not, however, discussing the intention of Congress in the assump- 
tion of this power, but only the question of its powers ; and whatever may 
have been its intention, I maintain that it has transcended its constitutional 
powers, and has placed in the hands of the Executive of the Confederacy that 
which the States have expressly and cai'efully denied to Congress and re- 
served to themselves. 

" But you may ask, why hold the Executive responsible for the unconsti- 
tutional action of Congress ? I would not, of course, insist on this any 
further than the action of Congi-ess has been sanctioned by the Executive, 
and acted upon by him. 

*' Feeling satisfied that the Conscription Act, and such other acts of Con- 
gress as authorize the President to appoint or commission the officers of the 
militia of the State, when employed in the service of the Confederate States 
to ' repel invasion,' are in palpable violation of the Constitution, I can con- 
sent to do no act which commits Georgia to willing acquiescence in their 
binding force upon her people. I cannot, therefore, consent to have any- 
thing to do with the enrolment of the conscripts in this State, nor can I per- 
mit any commissioned officer of the militia to be enrolled who is necessary 
to enable the State to exercise her reserved right of training her militia, ac- 
cording to the discipline prescribed by Congi-ess, at a time when to prevent 
troubles with her slaves, a strict military police is absolutely necessary to the 
safety of her people. Nor can I permit any other officer, civil or military, 
who is necessary to the maintenance of the State government, to be carried 
out- of the State as a conscript. 

" Should you at any time need additional troops from Georgia to fill up 
her just quota, in proportion to the number furnished by the other States, 
you have only to call on the Executive for the number required, to be or- 
ganized and oGBcered as the Constitution directs, and your call will, as it 
ever has done, meet a prompt response from her noble and patriotic people, 
who, while they will watch with a jealous eye, even in the midst of revo- 
lution, every attempt to undermine their constitutional rights, will never be 
content to be behind the foremost in the discharge of their whole duty. 
" I am, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

"Joseph E. Brown." 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 365 



"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
Richmond, May 29, 1862 



J 



^'Dear Sir : — I received your letter of the 8th inst. in due course, but the 
importance of the subject embraced in it required careful consideration; 
and this, together with other pressing duties, has caused delay in my reply. 

" The constitutional question discussed by you in relation to the Con- 
scription Law had been duly weighed before I recommended to Congress 
the passage of such a law ; it was fully debated in both houses ; and your 
letter has not only been submitted to my Cabinet, but a written opinion has 
been required from the Attorney-General. The constitutionality of the law 
was sustained by very large majorities in both houses. This decision of the 
Congress meets the concurrence, not only of my own judgment, but of every 
member of the Cabinet ; and a copy of the opinion of the Attorney-General, 
herewith enclosed, develops the reasons on which his conclusions are based. 

" I propose, however, from my high respect for yourself, and for other 
eminent citizens who entertain opinions similar to yours, to set forth, some- 
what at length, my own views on the power of the Confederate Government 
over its own armies and the militia, and will endeavor not to leave without 
answer any of the positions maintained in your letter. 

" The main if not the only purpose for which independent States form 
unions or confederations is to combine the power of the several members in 
such manner as to form one united force in all relations with foreign powers, 
whether in peace or in war. Each State, amply competent to administer and 
control its own domestic government, yet too feeble successfully to resist 
powerful nations, seeks safety by uniting with other States in like condition, 
and by delegating to some common agent the combined strength of all, in 
order to secure advantageous commercial relations in peace, and to carry 
on hostilities with effect in war. 

"Now, the powers delegated by the several States to the Confederate 
Government, which is their common agent, are enumerated in the 8th section 
of the Constitution, each power being distinct, specific, and enumerated in 
paragraphs separately numbered. The only exception is the 18th paragraph, 
which, by its own terms, is made dependent on those previously enumerated, 
as follows : 

" ' 18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
into execution the foregoing powers,' etc. 

"Now the war powers granted to the Congress are conferred in the follow- 
ing paragraphs : 

" No. 1 gives authority to raise ' revenue necessary to pay the debts, pro- 
vide/or the common defence, and carry on the government,' &c. 

"No. 11, 'to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make 
rules concerning captures on land and water ; ' 

"No. 12, ' to raise and support armies ; but no appropriation of money to 
that use shall be for a longer term than two years.' 



366 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

" No. 13, ' to provide and maintain a navy ; ' 

"No. 14, 'to make rules for the government and regulation of the land 
and naval forces.' 

" Ifc is impossible to imagine a more broad, ample, and unqualified dele- 
gation of" the whole war power of each State than, is here contained, with the 
solitary limitation of the appropriations to two years. The Spates not only 
gave power to raise money for the common defence; to declare war; to 
raise and support armies (in the plural) ; to provide and maintain a navy ; 
to govern and regulate both land and naval forces ; but they went further, 
and covenanted, by the 3d paragraph of the 10th section, not ' to engage in 
war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit 
of delay.' 

" I know of but two modes of raising armies within the Confederate States, 
viz. : voluntary enlistment, and draft or conscription. I perceive, in the 
delegation of power to raise armies, no restriction as to the mode of procur- 
ing troops. I see nothing which confines Congress to one class of men, nor 
any greater power to receive volunteers than conscripts into its service. I 
see no limitation by which enlistments are to be received of individuals 
only, but not of companies, or battalions, or squadrons, or regiments. I 
find no limitation of time of service but only of duration of appropriation, 
I discover nothing to confine Congress to waging war within the limits of 
the Confederacy, nor to prohibit offensive war. In a word, when Congress 
desires to raise an army, and passes a law for that purpose, the solitary ques- 
tion is under the 18th paragraph, viz. : ' Is the law one that is necessary and 
piroper to execute the power to raise armies,' etc.? 

" On tliis point you say : ' But did the necessity exist in this case ? ' The 
Conscription Act cannot aid the Government in increasing the supply of 
arniA ov provisions, but can only enable it to call a larger number of men into 
the field. The difficulty has never been to get men. The States have 
already furnished the Government more than it can arm,' etc. 

" I would have very little difficulty in establishing to your entire satisfac- 
tion that the passage of the law was not only necessary, but that it was abso- 
lutely indispensable ; that numerous regiments of twelve-months men were 
on the eve of being disbanded, whose places could not be supplied by new 
levies in the face of superior numbers of the foe, without entailing the most 
disastrous results ; that the position of our armies was so critical as to fill 
the bosom of every patriot with the liveliest apprehension ; and that the pro- 
visions of this law were effective in warding off a pressing danger. But I 
prefer to answer your objection on other and broader grounds. 

"I hold, that wlien a specific power is granted by the Constitution like 
thut now in question, ' to raise armies,' Congress is the judge whether the 
law passed for the purpose of executing that power is ' necessary and 
proper.' It is not enough to say that armies might be raised in other ways, 
and that, therefore, this particular way is not ' necessary.' The same argu- 



AND GOV. BEOWK UPON CONSCKIPTIOK 367 

ment might be used against erer?/ mode of raising armies. To each succes- 
sive mode suggested, the objection would be that other modes were pi'actica- 
ble, and that, therefore, the particular mode used was not ' necessary.' The 
true and only testis to enquire whether the law is intended and calculated to 
carry out the object ; whether it devises and creates an instrumentality for 
executing the specific power granted ; and if the answer be in the affirmative, 
the law is constitutional. None can doubt that the Conscription Law is 
calculated and intended to ' raise armies.' It is, therefore, ' necessary and 
proper 'for the execution of that power, and is constitutional, unless it 
comes into conflict with some other provision of our Confederate compact. 

" You express the opinion that this conflict exists, and support your argu- 
ment by the citation of those clauses which refer to the militia. There 
are certain provisions not cited by you, which are not without influence on 
my judgment, and to which I call your attention. They will aid in defining 
what is meant by ' militia,' and in determining the respective powers of the 
States and the Confederacy over them. 

" The several States agree ' not to keep troops or ships of war in time of 
peace.' Art. 1, sec. 10, par. 3. 

"They further stipulate, that 'a well regulated militia being necessary 
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms 
shall not be infringed.' Sec. 9, par. 13. 

" That ' no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infa- 
mous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in 
cases arising in the land or naval forces or in the militia when in actual 
service in time of war or public danger,' etc. Sec. 9, par. 16. 

" What then are militia? They can only be created by law. — The arms- 
bearing inhabitants of a State are liable to become its militia, if the law so 
order ; but in the absence of a law to that effect, the men of a State capable 
of bearing arms are no more militia than they are seamen. 

" The Constitution also tells us that militia are not troops nor are they any 
part of the land or naval forces; for militia exist in time of peace, and the 
Constitution forbids the States to keep troops in time of peace, and they are 
expressly distinguished and placed in a separate categorj^ from land or naval 
forces, in the 16th paragraph, above quoted ; and the words land or naval forces 
are shown, by paragraphs 12, 13 and 14, to mean the army and navy of the 
Confederate States. 

" Now, if militia are not the citizens taken singly, but a body cre- 
ated by law, if they are not troops, if they are no part of the army and 
navy of the Confederacy — we are led directly to the definition quoted by 
the Attorney-General, that militia are a ' body of soldiers in a State enrolled 
for discipline.' In other words, the term ' militia ' is a collective term, 
meaning a body of men organized, and cannot be applied to the separate in- 
dividuals who compose the organization. 

" The Constitution divides the whole military strength of the States into 



368 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

only two classes of organized bodies — one, the armies of the Confederacy ; the 
other, the militia of the States. 

" In the delegation of power to the Confederacy, after exhausting the sub- 
ject of declaring war, raising "and supporting armies, and providing a 
navy, in relation to all which the grant of authority to Congress is exclusive, 
the Constitution proceeds to deal with the other organized body, the militia, 
and, instead of delegating power to Congress alone, or reserving it to the 
States alone, the power is divided as follows, viz. : Congress is to have 
power — 

" ' To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Con- 
federate States, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.' Sec. 8, par. 15. 

" ' To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for 
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Con- 
federate States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of officers 
and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed 
by Congress.' Par. 16. 

" Congress, then, has the power to provide for organizing the arms-bearing 
people of the States into militia. Each State has the power to officer and 
train them when organized.- 

" Congress may call forth the militia to execute Confederate laws. The 
State\\?^s not surrendered the power to call them forth to execute State laws. 

" Congress may call them forth to repel invasion ; so may the State, for it 
has expressly reserved this right. 

" Congress may call them forth to suppress insurrection, and so may the 
State, for the power is impliedly reserved of governing all the militia except 
the part in actual service of the Confederacy. 

"I confess myself at a loss to perceive in what manner these careful and 
well-defined provisions of the Constitution regulating the organization and 
government of the militia can be understood as applying in the remotest 
degree to the armies of the Confederacy; nor can I conceive how the grant 
of exclusive power to declare and carry on war by armies raised and sup- 
ported by the Confederacy, is to be restricted or diminished by the clauses 
which grant a divided power over the militia. On the contrary, the delega- 
tion of authority over the militia, so far as granted, appears to me to be 
plainly an additional enumerated power, intended to strengthen the hands of 
the Confederate Government in the discharge of its paramount duty, the 
common defence of the States. 

" You state, after quoting the 12th, 15th, and 16th grants of power to 
Congress, that, ' These grants of power all relate to the same subject matter, 
and are all contained in the same section of the Constitution, and by a well 
known rule of construction must be taken as a whole, and construed together.' 

" This argument appears to me unsound. All the powers of Congress are 
enumerated in one section ; and the three paragraphs quoted can no more 
control each other by reason of their location in the same section, than they 



AND GOV. BEOWE" UPOX CONSCEIPTION. 369 

can control any of the other paragrtaphs preceding, intervening, or sncceed- 
ing. So far as the subject matter is coucerned, I have akeady endeavored to 
show that the armies mentioned in the r2th paragraph are a subject matter 
as distinct from the militia mentioned in the loth and 16th as they are from 
the navy mentioned in the 13th. Xothing can so mislead as to construe to- 
gether, and as a whole, the carefully separated clauses which define the 
different powers to be exercised over distinct subjects by the Congress. But 
you add that, ' by the grant of power to Congress to raise and support 
armies without qualification, the framers of the Constitution intended the 
regular armies of the Confederacy, and not armies composed of the whole 
militia of all the States.' 

" I must confess myself somewhat at a loss to understand this position. 
If I am right, that the militia is a Jo'/y of enrolled State soldiers, it is not 
possible, in the nature of things, that armies raised by the Confederacy can 
'be composed of the whole militia of all the States.' The militia may be 
called forth, in w^hole or in part, into the Confederate service, but do not 
thereby become part of the 'armies raised' by Congress. They remain 
militia, and go home when the emergency which provoked their call has 
ceased. Armies raised by Congress are of coui'se raised out of the same 
]>opulation as the militia organized by the States ; and to deny to Congress 
the power to draft a citizen into the army, or to receive his voluntary offer 
of services because he, is a member of the State militia, is to deny the power 
to raise an ai'my at all ; for, practically, all men fit for service in the army 
may be embraced in the militia organizations of the several States. You 
seem, however, to suggest, rather than directly to assert, that the conscript 
law may be unconstitutional, because it comprehends all arms-bearing men 
between eighteen and thirty-five years: at least this is an inference which I 
draw from your expression, 'armies composed of the ichole militia of all the 
States.' But it is obvious that, if Congress have power to draft into the 
armies raised by it any citizens at all (without regard to the fact whether 
they are or not members of militia organizations), the power must be co- 
extensive with the exigencies of the occasion, or it becomes illusory ; and 
the extent of the exigency must be determined by Congress; for the Consti- 
tution has left the power without any other check or restriction than the 
Executive veto. Under ordinary circumstances, the power thus delegated 
to Congress is scarcely felt hj the States. At the present moment, when 
our very existence is thi-eatened by armies vastly superior in numbers to 
ours, the necessity for defence has induced a call, not ' for the whole militia 
of all the States,' not for any militia, but for men to compose armies for the 
Confederate States. 

" Surel}^, there is no mystery on this subject. During our whole past 
history, as well as during our recent one year's experience as a new confed- 
eracy, the militia 'have been called forth to repel invasion ' in numerous 
instances; and they never came otherwise than as bodies organized by the 
24 



370 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

States, with their company, field, and general officers ; and when the emer- 
gency had passed, they went home again. 

" I cannot perceive how any one can interpret the conscription law as 
taking away from the States tlie power to appoint officers to their militia. 
You observe on this point in your letter, that unless your construction is 
adopted ' the very object of the States in reserving the power of appointing 
the officers is defeated, and that portion of the Constitution is not only a 
nullity, but the whole military power of the States, and the entire control of 
the militia, with the appointment of the oSicers, is vested in the Confederate 
Government, whenever it chooses to call its own action "raising an army," 
and not calling forth the militia.' 

" I can only say, in reply to this, that the power of Congress depends on 
the rcid nature of the act it proposes to pei-form, not on the name given to 
it ; and I have endeavored to show that its action is merely that of ' raising 
an army,' and bears no semblance to 'calling forth the militia.' I think I 
may safely venture the assertion, that there is not one man out of a thou- 
sand of those who will do service under the Conscription Act that would 
describe himself, while in the Confederate service, as being a militia man; 
and if I am right in this assumption, the popular understanding concurs 
entirely with my own deductions from the Constitution as to the meaning 
of the word ' militia.' 

"My answer has gi'own to such a length that I must confine myself to one 
more quotation from your letter. You proceed : ' Congress shall have power 
to raise armies. How shall it be done ? The answer is clear. In conformity 
to the provisions of the Constitution, which expressly provides that when 
the militia of the States are called forth to repel invasion, and employed in 
the service of the Confederate States, which is now the case, the State shall 
appoint the officers.' 

" I beg you to observe that the answer, which you say is clear, is not an 
answer to the question put. The question is : How are armies to be raised? 
The answer given is, that when militia are called forth to repel invasion the 
State shall appoint the officers. 

"There seems to me to be a conclusive test on this whole subject. By 
our Constitution Congress may declare war, offensive as well as defensive. 
It may acquire territory. — Now, suppose that for good cause, and to right 
unprovoked injuries. Congress should declare war against Mexico, and 
invade Sonora. The militia could not be called forth in such a case, the 
right to call it being limited ' to repel invasions.' Is it not plain that the 
law now uuder discussion, if passed under such circumstances, could by no 
possibility be aught else than a law to ' raise an army '? Can one and the 
same law be construed into a 'calling forth the militia,' if the war be defen- 
sive, and a ' raising of armies,' if the war be offensive ? 

"At some future day, after our independence shall have been established, 
it is no improbable supposition that our present enemy may be tempted to 



AND GOV. BEOWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 371 

•abuse his naval power, by depredation on our commerce, and that we may 
be coHipelled to assert our rights by offensive war. How is it to be carried 
on ? Of what is the army to be composed? If this Government cannot call 
on its arms-bearing population otherwise than as militia, and if the militia 
can only be called forth to repel invasion, we should be utterly helpless to 
vindicate our honor or protect our rights. War has been well styled ' the 
teriuble litigation of nations.' Have we so formed our Government that in 
this litigation we must never be plaintiff? Surely this cannot have been the 
intention of the framers of our compact. 

"In no aspect in which I can view this law, can I find just reason to dis- 
trust the propriety of my action in approving and signing it ; and the ques- 
tion presented involves consequences, both immediate and remote, too 
momentous to permit me to leave your objections unanswered. 

"In conclusion, I take great pleasure in recognizing that the history of 
the past year affords the amplest justification for your assertion, that if the 
question had been whether the conscription law was necessary in order to 
raise men in Georgia, the answer must have been in the negative. Your 
noble State has promptly responded to every call tliat it has been my duty 
to make on her; and to you, personally, as her Executive, I acknowledge 
my indebtedness for the prompt, cordial, and effective co-operation you 
have afforded me in the eflbrt to defend our common country against the 

common enemy. 

" I am, very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"Jefferson Davis. 
"His Excellency Jos. E. Brown, 

" Governor of Georgia, 

" Milledgeville." 



" Atlanta, June 21, 1862. 
"HIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS, President, &c. 

'^ D:!ar Sir: — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
of the 29th ult., in reply to mine of the 8th of the same month, which 
reached my office, at Milledgeville, on the 8th inst., together with a copy of 
the written opinion of the Attorney- General, and has since been forwarded 
to me at Canton, where I was detained by family affliction. 

"Your reply, prepared after mature deliberation and consultation with a 
Cabinet of distinguished ability, who concur in your view of the constitu- 
tionality of the Conscription Act, doubtless presents the very strongest 
argument in defence of the Act, of which the case is susceptible. 

'• Entertaining, as I do, the highest respect for your opinions and those of 
each individual member of your Cabinet, it is with great diffidence that I 
express the conviction, which I still entertain, after a careful perusal of your 



'372 COERESPONDEKCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

lettei", that your argument fails to sustain the constitutionality of the Act; 
and that the conclusion at which you have arrived is maintained by neither 
the contemporaneous construction put upon the Constitution by those who 
made it. nor by the practice of the United States Government under it 
during the earlier and better days of the Republic, nor by the language of 
the instrument itself, taking the whole context and applying to it the well 
established rules by which all constitutions and laws are to be consti'ued. 

"Looking to the magnitude of the rights involved, and the disastrous 
consequences which, I fear, must follow what I consider a bold and danger- 
ous usurpation by Congress of tne reserved rights of the States, and a rapid 
stride towards military despotism, I very much regret that I have not, in the 
preparation of this reply, the advice and assistance of a number equal to 
your Cabinet, of the many 'eminent citizens' who, you admit, entertain 
with me, the opinion that the Conscription Act is a palpable violation of the 
Constitution of the Confederacy. Without this assistance, however, I must 
proceed individually to express to you some views, in addition to those con- 
tained in my former letter:^, and to reply to such points made by you in the 
argument, as seem to my mind to have the most plausibility in sustaining 
your conclusion. 

"The sovereignty and independence of each one of the thirteen States at 
the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the Uuited States, will not, I 
presume, be denied by any, nor will it be denied that each of these States 
acted in its separate capacity, as an independent sovereign, in the adoption 
of the Constitution. The Constitution is, therefore, a league between sov- 
ereio-ns. In order to place upon it a just construction, we must apply to it 
the rules, which, by common consent, govern in the construction of all writ- 
ten constitutions and laws. One of the first of these rules is, to inquire what 
was the intention of those who made the Constitution. 

" To enable us to learn this intention, it is important to inquire what they 
did, and what they said they meant, when they were making it. In other 
words, to inquire for the contemporaneous construction put upon the instru- 
ment bv those who made it, and the explanations of its meaning by those 
who proposed each part in the convention, which induced the convention to 
adopt each part. 

" I incorporated into my la«t letter a number of quotations from the de- 
bates of prominent members of the convention upon the very point in ques- 
tion, showing that it was not the intention of the convention to give to Con- 
gress the unlimited control of all the men able to bear arms in the States, 
but that it was their intention to reserve to the States the control over those 
who composed their militia, by retaining to the States the appointment of the 
officers to command them, even while 'employed in the service of the Con- 
federate States.' I might add many other quotations containing strong proofs 
of this position, from the debates of the Federal convention, and the action 
of the State conventions which adopted the Constitution; but I deem it 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 373 

unnecessary, as you made no allusion to the contemporaneous construction 
in your reply, and I presume you do not insist that the explanations of its 
meaning given by those who made it sustain your conclusion. 

"I feel that I am fully justified by the debates and the action of the Fed- 
eral and State conventions, in saying that it was the intention of the thirteen 
sovereigns, I0 constitute a common agent with certain specific and limited 
powers, to be exercised for the good of all the principals, but that it was not 
the intention to give the agent the power to deniroy the. principals. The agent 
was expected to be rather the servant of several masters, than the master of 
several servants. I apprehend it was never imagined that the time would 
corne when the agent of the sovereigns would claim the power to take from 
each sovereign every man belonging to each, able to bear arms, and leave 
them with no power to execute their own laws, suppress insurrections in their 
midst, or repel invasions. 

'• In reference to the practice of the United States Government under the 
Constitution, I need only remark, that I do not presume it will be contended 
that Congress claimed or exercised the right to compel persons constituting 
the militia of the States, by conscription or compulsion, to enter the service of 
the General Government, without the consent of their State Government, at 
any time while the Government was administered, or its councils controlled, 
by any of the fathers of the Republic who aided in the formation of the Con- 
stitution. 

"If, then, the constitutionality of the Conscription Act cannot be estab- 
lished by the contemporaneous construction of the Constitution, nor by the 
earlier practice of the Government while administered by those who made 
the Constitution, the remaining inquiry is, can it be established by the lan- 
guage of the instrument itself, taking the whole context, and applying to it 
the usual rules of construction, which were generally received and admitted 
to be authoritative at the time it was made. 

" The Constitution, in express language, gives Congress the power to ' raise 
and support armies.' You rest the case here, and say you know of but two 
modes of 'raising armies,' to wit: 'by voluntary enlistment, and by draft or 
conscription,' and you conclude that the Constitution authorizes Congress to 
raise them by either or both these modes. 

" To enable us to arrive at an intelligent conclusion as to the meaning in- 
tended to be conveyed by those who used this language, it is necessary to 
inquire what signification was attached' to the terms used, at the time they 
were used ; and it is fair to infer that those who used them intended to con- 
vey to the minds of others tlie idea which was at that time usually conveyed 
by the language adopted by them. Apply this rule, and what did the con- 
vention mean by the term ' to raise armies ? ' I prefer that the Attorney- 
General should answer. He says in his written opinion : 

" ' Inasmuch as the words " militia," " armies," " regular troops," and " vol- 
unteers," had acquired a definite meaning in Great Britain before the Revolu- 



374 COERESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

tionary war, and as we liave derived most of our ideas on this subject from 
that source, we may safely conclude that the term " militia," in our Constitu- 
tion, was used in the sense attached to it in that country.' 

" Upon this statement of the Attorney-General rests his definition of the 
term 'militia,' which is an English definition; and upon that definition 
rests all that part of your argument, which draws a distinction, however un- 
substantial, between calling forth the militia by the authority of Congress, 
and calling forth all men in the State who compose the militia by the same 
authority. In the one case, you term it calling forth the militia^ and admit 
that the State has the right to appoint the officers: in the other case, while 
every man called forth may be the same, you term it raising an army, and 
deny to the State the appointment of the officers. As this is necessary to 
sustain the constitutionality of the Conscription Act, you cannot disapprove 
the statement of the Attorney-General above quoted. If, then, the Attorney- 
General is right, that tlie terms ' militia,' ' armies, ' regular troops,' and ' vol- 
unteers ' had acquired a definite meaning in Great Britain before the Rev- 
olutionary war, and we have derived most of our ideas on this subject from 
that source, and if we may safely conclude that the term ' militia ' in our 
Constitution was used in the sense attached to it in that country, is it not 
equally safe to conclude that the terms ' armies,' and to ' raise armies,' hav- 
ing acquired a definite meaning in Great Britain before the Revolutionary 
war, were used in our Constitution in the same sense attached to them in 
that country ? 

"At that period, the government of Great Britain had no Conscription 
Act, and did not ' raise armies ' by conscription ; therefore the convention 
which made our Constitution, ' having derived most of their ideas on this 
subject from that source,' it is ' safe to conclude ' that they used the term to 
'raise armies' in the sense attached to it in that country. It necessarily fol- 
lows, the Attorney-General being the judge, that your conclusion is erro- 
neous, and that Congress has no power to ' raise armies,' not even her reg- 
ular armies,' hy conscription. 

" But, as those who framed the Constitution foresaw that Congress might 
not be able, by voluntary enlistment, to raise regular or standing armies suf- 
ficiently large to meet all emergencies, or that the people might refuse to 
vote supplies to maintain in the field armies so large and dangerous, they 
wisely provided, in connection with this grant of power, another relating to 
the same subject-matter, and gave Congress the additional power to call 
forth the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States, suppress in- 
surrections, and repel invasions. 

" In this connection, I am reminded by your letter, that Congress has power 
'to declare war,' which you say embraces the right to declare offensive as 
well as defensive war; and you argue, as I understand, that the militia can 
only be called forth to repel invasions, and not to invade a foreign power, 
and that Congress would be powerless to redress our wrongs, or vindicate 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 375 

our honor, if it could not ' raise armies ' by conscription, to invade foreign 
powers. If this were even so, it might be an objection to the constitutional 
government, for want of sufficient strength, which is an objection often 
made by (hose who favor more absolute power in the general government, 
and who attempt, by a latitudinarian construction of the Constitution, to 
supply powers which were never intended to be given to it. But does the 
practical difficulty which you suggest in fact exist? I maintain that it 
does not. And I may here remark, that those wlio established the govern- 
ment of our fathers did not look to it as a great military power, whose 
people were to live by plundering other nations in foreign aggressive war, 
but as a peaceful government, advised by the Father of his Country to avoid 
' entangling alliances ' with foreign powers. 

" But you suppose, after our independence is established, that our present 
enemy may be tempted to abuse his naval power, by depredation on our 
commerce, and that we may be compelled to assert our rights by offensive 
war, and you ask, ' How is it to be carried on ? ' 'Of what is the army to be 
composed? ' The answer is a very simple one. If tlie aggression is such as 
to justify us in the declaration of offensive war, our people will have the in- 
telligence to know it, and the patriotism and valor to prompt them to re- 
spond by voluntary enlistment, and to oifer themselves under officers of 
their own choice, through their State authorities, to the Confederacy, just as 
they did in the offensive war against Mexico, when many more w-ere offered 
than were needed, without conscription or coercion ; and just as they Iiave 
done in our present defensive war, when a'most every State has responded 
to every call, by sending larger numbers than were called for, and larger 
than the government can arm and make effective. There is no danger that 
the honor of the intelligent free-born citizens of tliis Confederacy will ever 
suffer because the government has not the power to compel them to vindicate 
it. They will hold the government responsible if it refuses to permit them to 
do it. To doubt this, would seem to be to doubt the intelligence and pa- 
triotism of the people, and their competency for self-government. 

" It would be very dangerous, indeed, to give the general government the 
power to engage in an offensive foreign war, the justice of which was con- 
demned by the governments of the States, and the intelligence of the people, 
and to compel tliera to prosecute it for two years, the term for which appro- 
priations can be made and continued by the Congress declaring it. Hence 
the wisdom of our ancestors in limiting the power of Congress over the 
militia, or great body of our people, so as to prohibit the prosecution, by 
conscnption or coercion,oi an offensive foreign war, which may be condemned 
by an intelligent public opinion. 

" France has a conscription act, which Great Britain has not. Both are 
warlike powers often engaged in foreign offensive wars. What advantage 
has the conscription law given to France over Great Britaio? Has not the 
latter been as able as the former to ' raise armies' sufficient to vindicate her 



376 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

honor and maintain her rights? When France had no conscription law at 
one period of her history, she was a republic. Soon after she had a con- 
scription law she became an empire and her ruler an emperor, leaving her 
people without the constitutional safeguards which protect the people of 
Great Britain. 

" But you ask, ' Shall we never be plaintiff in this '' terrible litigation of 
nations ? " ' If the litigation commends itself to the intelligence of the 
people as just, they will not hesitate to put themselves at the command of 
the Government to assume the plaintiff's position. The eagerness with 
which the people of the Confederacy now desire that we assume the plaintiff's 
position, and become the attacking and invading party, instead of acting con- 
stantly upon the defensive, is evidence to sustain my conclusion on this point. 

" That those who framed the Constitution looked to a state of war as 
tending to concentrate the power in the Executive, and as unfavorable to 
constitutional liberty, and did not intend to encourage it, unless in cases of 
absolute necessity, and did not, therefore, form the government with a view 
to its becoming a power often engaged in offensive war, may be infen-ed 
from the language of Mr. Madison. He says : 

" ' War is, in fact, the true nurse of Executive aggrandizement. In war a 
physical force is to be created, and it is the Executive will which is to direct 
it. In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the Executive 
hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honors and emoluments of 
office are to be multiplied, and it is the Executive patronage under which 
they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, 
and it is the Executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions 
and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast — ambition, avarice, 
vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame — are all in conspiracy against 
the desire and duty of peace.' See Federalist, page 452. 

" In connection with this remark of Mr. Madison, it may not be amiss to 
add one from Mr. Calhoun. That great and good man, who may justly be 
styled the champion of Stale Rights and Consti/uiiunal Liberty, in the first 
volume of his works, page 361, while speaking of the war which was forced 
upon Mr. Madison while President, by Great Britain, says : 

" ' It did more ; for the war, however just and necessary, gave a strong 
impulse adverse to the Federal and favorable to the national line of policy. 
This is, indeed, one of the unavoidable consequences of war and can be 
counteracted only by bringing into full action the nec/atives necessary to the 
protection of the reserved powers. These would of themselves have the 
effect of preventing wars, so long as they could be honorably and safely 
avoided ; and, when necessary, of arresting to a great extent the tendency of 
the Government to transcend the Umit< of the Constitution during its prosecution, 
and of correcting all departures after its termination. It was by force of 
the tribunitial power that the plebeians retained for so long a period their 
liberty in the midst of so many wars.' 



AND GOV. BEOWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 377 

" I beg to call special attention to the portions of the above quotation 
which I have italicised. 

"Having rested the constitutionality of the Conscription Act upon the 
power given to Congress to ' raise armies,' you enunciate a doctrine which, I 
must be pardoned for saying, struck me with surprise ; not that the doctrine 
was new, for it was first proclaimed, I believe, almost as strongly by Mr, 
Hamilton in the Federalist, but because it found an advocate in you, whom 
I had for many years regarded as one of the ablest and boldest defenders of 
the doctrines of the State Rights school, in the old government. Your lan- 
guage is : 

"'I hold that when a specific power is granted by the Constitution, like 
that now in question, to "raise armies," Congress is the judge whetlier 
the law passed for the purpose of executing that power, is necessary and 
proper.' 

'• Again you say : 

" ' The true and only test is, to enquire whether the law is intended and 
calculated to carry out the object, whether it devises and creates an instru- 
mentality for executing the specific power granted, and if the answer be 
in the affirmative the law is constitutional.' 

"From this you argue that the Conscription Act is calculated and in- 
tended to 'raise armies,' and, therefore, constitutional. 

" I am not aware that the proposition was ever stated more broadly in 
favor of unrestrained Congressional power, by Webster, Story, or any other 
statesman or jurist of the Federal school. 

'• This is certainly not the doctrine of the Republican party of 179S, as 
set forth in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. The Virginia Resolu- 
tions use the following language, that ' It (the General Assembly of Virginia) 
views the powers of the Federal Government as resulting from the compact 
to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention 
of the instrument constituting that compact, as no further valid than they 
are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that incase of 
a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by said 
compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right and are in duty 
hound 10 interpose for arresting the progress of the evd, and for maintaining with- 
in their respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to 
them. That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret that a 
spirit has in sundry instances been manifested by the Federal Government 
to enlarge its powers by a forced construction of the constitutional charter tvhich 
defines them ; and that indications have appeared of a design to expound cer- 
tain general phrases — which having been copied from the very limited 
grant of powers in the former articles of confederation were the less liable to 
be misconstrued — so as to destroy the meaning and effect of the particular 
enumeration which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases, so as to 
consolidate the States by degrees into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and 



378 COEUESPONDEXCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

inevitable result of which would be to transform the present republican sys- 
tem of the United States into an ahsolule or at least a mixed monnrchy.' 

"The following quotations are from the Kentucky Resolutions drawn up 
by Mr. Jefferson himself (the italics, as in the last quotation, are my own), 
' That the several States composing the United States of America are not 
united on the pi-inciple of nnlimued suhmisnon to the general Government, 
but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution of the 
United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general Gov- 
ernment for special purposes — delegated to tliat Government certain definite 
powers ; reserring each State to itself, the residuary mass ofriylit to their own self- 
government ; th}it whensoever the general Government assume.s undelegated pow- 
ers its acts are unauthoritative, void and of no force ; that to this compact each 
State acceded as a State, and is an inte^jral party — its co-States forming as to it- 
self the other party ; that the government created by this compact was not made the 
exclusive or fnal Judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it — since that 
would have made its discretion and not the Constitution the m'^a^ure of its 
po'vers ; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no 
common Juoge, each has an equal right to Judge fur itself as ictll of infrac- 
tions as of the mode and measure of redress.' 

" And again : 

"' That the construction applied hy the general Government (as evinced by sun- 
dry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the United 
States which delegate to Congress a power to lay and collect taxes, duties, 
imposts and excises ; to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and 
general welfare of the United States; and to make all laws necessary and 
proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in 
the Government of the United States, or any department thereof, goes to the 
destruction of all the limits prescribed to their power hy the Constitution. That 
words meant by that instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of the 
limited powers ought not to be so construed as themselves to give unlimited 
powers, nor a part so to be taken as to destroy the ichole residue of the instrument.' 

" But let us examine your doctrine a little further and see whether it can 
be reconciled to the construction lately put upon the Constitution by the 
States composing the Confederacy over which you preside, and the action 
lately taken by them. 

" The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to pro- 
vide for calling forth the militia to ' suppress insurrections.' Carry out your 
doctrine, and Congress must of course be the judge of what constitutes an 
insurrection, as well as of the mQViWS " necessary and proper ' to be used in 
executing the specific powers given to Congress to suppress it. Georgia, 
claiming that the Congress of the United States had abused the specific 
in powers granted to it, and passed laws which were not ' necessary and proper' 
in executing these specific powers which were injurious to her people, and claim- 
ing to be herself the judge, seceded from the Union. Congress denied her 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCEIPTION. 379 

power or right to do so, and acting upon the doctrine laid down by you, 
Congress, claiming to be the judge, proceeded to adjudicate the case, and de- 
termined that the action of Georgia amounted to an insurrection, and passed 
laws for its suppression. Among others, tliey have passed a law, if we may 
credit the newspapers, which authorizes the President to arm our negroes 
against us. Congress will, no doubt, justify this act, under the specific power 
given to it by tlie Constitution, to ' raise armies,' as the armies as well as the 
militia may be used to suppress insurrection, and execute the laws. Apply 
the test laid down by you, and inquire, is this law ' calculated and intended ' 
to carry out the object (the suppression of the insurrection, and the execution 
of the laws of the United States in Georgia) ? and does it ' devise and create 
an instrumentality for executing the specific power granted?' Congress, the 
judge, answers the question in the affirmative. Therefore the law is consti- 
tutional. 

" Again, suppose you are right, and Congress has the constitutional power 
to 'raise armies' by conscription, and, without the consent of the States, to 
compel every man in the Confederacy between 18 and 35 years old, able to 
bear arms, to enter these armies, you mus-t admit that Congress has the same 
power to extend the law, and compel every man between 16 and 60 to enter. 
And you must admit that the grant of power is as broad in times of peace 
as in times of war, as there is in the grant no language to limit it to times of 
war. It follows that Congress has the absolute control of every man in the 
State, whenever it chooses to execute to the full extent the power given it 
by the Constitution to 'raise armies.' How easy a matter it would have 
been, therefore, had the Congress of the United States understood the full 
extent of its power, to have prevented in a manner perfectly constitutional 
the secession of Georgia and Mississippi from the Union. It was only neces- 
sary to pass a conscription law declaring every man in both States able to 
bear arms, to be in the military service of the United States, and that each 
should be treated as a deserter if he refused to serve; and that Congress, 
the judge, then decide this law was ' necessary and proper,' and that it cre- 
ated an instrumentality for the execution of one of the specific powers 
granted to Congress to provide for the execution of the laws of the Union in 
the two States, or to provide for ' raising armies.' This would have left 
the States witliout a single man at their command, without the power to 
organize or use military force, and without free men to constitute even a 
convention to pass an ordinance of secession. 

" If it is said the people of the States would have refused to obey this law 
of Congress, and would have gone out in defiance of it ; it may be replied 
that this would have been revolution and not peaceful secession, the right for 
which we have all contended — though our enemies have not permitted us to 
part with them in peace — the right for which we are now fighting. 

"Your doctrine carried out not only makes Congress supreme over the 
States, at any time when it chooses to exercise the full measure of its power 



380 COPvKESPONDENCE OF PEESIDENT DAVIS 

to ' raise armies,' but it places the very existence of the State governments 
subject to the will of Congress. The Conscription Act makes no exception 
in favor of the officers necessary to the existence of the State government, 
but in substance declares that they shall all enter the service of the Confed- 
eracy, at the call of the President, under officers which are in future to be ap- 
pointed by the President. 

"As ah-eady remarked, Congress has as much power to extend the act to 
embrace all between 16 and 60, as it had to take all between 18 and 35. If 
the act is constitutional, it follows that Congress has the power to compel the 
Governor of every State in the Confederacy, every member of every Legisla- 
ture of every State, every judge of every court in every State, every officer 
of the militia of every State, and all other State officers to enter the military 
service as privates in the armies of the Confederacy, under officers appointed 
by the President, at any time when it so decides. In other words. Congress 
may disband the State governments any day when it, as the juiige, decides 
that by so doing it ' creates an instrumentality for executing the specific 
power ' to ' raise armies.' 

"If Congress has the right to discriminate, and take only those between 
18 and 35, it has the right to make any other discrimination it may judge 
'necessary and proper' in the 'execution of the power,' and it may pass a 
law in time of peace or war, if it should conclude the State governments are 
an evil, that all State officers, executive, legislative, judicial, and military, 
shall enter the armies of the Confederacy as privates under officers appointed 
by the President, and that the army shall from time to time be recruited 
from other State officers as they may be appointed by the States. 

"To state the case in different form. Congress has the power under the 
12th paragraph of the 8th section of the 1st article of the Constitution to 
disband the State governments, and leave the people of the States with no 
other government than such military despotism as Congress in the exercise 
of the specific power to ' raise armies ' (which I understand you to hold is a 
distinct power to be construed separately) may, after an application of your 
test, judge to be best for the people. 

" For, as all the State officers which I mention might make effective pri- 
vates in the armies of the Confederacy, and as the law passed to compel them 
to enter the service might 'create an instrumentality for executing the spe- 
cific power' to 'raise armies,' Congress, the judge, need only so decide and 
the act would be constitutional. 

" I may be reminded, however, that Congress passed an Exemption Act af- 
ter the passage of the Conscription Act, which exempts the Governors of the 
States, the members of the State Legislatures, the judges of the State courts, 
etc., from the obligation to enter the military service of the Confederacy as 
privates under Confederate officers. It must be borne in mind, however, 
that this very act of exemption by Congress is an assertion of the right vested 
in Congress to compel them to go, when Congress shall so direct, as Congress 



A^D GOV. BROWN" UPON" CONSCRIPTION". 381 

has the same power to repeal which it had to pass the Exemption Act. All 
the State officers, therefoi'e, are exempt from conscription by the (jrace and 
special favor nf Congress and not by right, as the governments of the independ- 
ent States whose agent, and not master. Congress had been erroneously sup- 
posed to be. If this doctrine be correct, of what value are State rights and 
State sovereignty ? 

" In my former letter I insisted, under the general rule, that the 12th, 15th 
and 16th paragraphs of the section under consideration, all relating to the 
same subject matter, should be construed together. While your language on 
this point is not so clear as in other parts of your letter, I understand you to 
take issue with me here. You say : 

"'Nothing can so mislead as to construe together and as one whole the 
carefully separated claus^es which define the different powers to be exercised 
over distinct subjects by Congress.' 

" These are not carefully separated clauses which relate to different powers 
to be exercised over distinct subjects. They all relate to the same subject matter, 
the authority given to Congress over the question of war and peace. They 
all relate to the use of armed force by authority of Congress. If, therefore, 
Coke, Blaclistone and Mansfield of England, and Marshall, Kent and Story 
of this country, with all other intelligent writers on the rules of construction, 
are to be respected as authority, there Cc\u, it would seem, be no doubt of the 
correctness of the position that these three paragraphs, together with all 
others in the Constitution which relate to the same subject matter, are to be 
construed together ' as one whole.' 

" Construe them together, and the general language in one paragraph is so 
qualified by another paragraph upon the same subject matter, that all can stand 
together, and the whole, when taken together, establishes to my mind the 
unsoundness of your argument and the fallacy of your conclusion. 

"But I must not omit to notice your definition of the term 'militia,' and 
the deductions which you draw from it. 

"You adopt the definition of the Attorney-General that 'the militia are a 
body of soldiers in a State enrolled for discipline.' Admit, for the purposes 
of the argument, the correctness of the definition. All persons, therefore, 
who aie enrolled for discipline under the laws of Georgia constitute her 
militia. When the persons thus enrolled (the militia) are employed in the 
service of the Confederate States, the Constitution expressly reserves to 
Georgia the appointment of the officers. The Conscription Act gives the Presi- 
dent the power by compulsion to employ every one of those persons, between 
18 and 3.0, in the service of the Confederate States; and denies to the State 
the appointment of a single officer to command them while thus 'employed.' 
Suppose Congress, at its next session should extend the Act so as to embrace 
all between 18 and 45, what is the result? 'The body of soldiers in the 
State enrolled for discipline' are every man 'employed in the service of the 
Confederacy,' and the right is denied to the State to appoint a single officer 



382 CORRESPONDENCE OF PKESIDENT DAVIS 

when the Constitution says she shall appoint them all. Is it fair to conclude 
when the States expressly and carefully reserved the control of their own 
niilitia, by reserving the appointment of the officers to command them, that 
they intended under the general grant of power to ' raise armies ' to authorize 
Congress to defeat the reservation and control the militia with their officers 
by calling the very same men into the flt-ld, individually and not colltdively, 
organizing them according to its own will, and terming its action ' raising 
an army ' and not calling forth the militia ? Surely the great men of the revo- 
lution, when they denied to the general government the appointment even of 
the general officers to command the militia when employed in the service of 
the Confederacy, did not imagine that the time would come so soon when that 
government, under the power to ' raise armies,' would claim and exercise the 
authority to call into the field the whole militia of the States individually, 
and deny to the States the appointment of the lowest lieutenant, and justify 
the act on the ground that Congress did not choose to call them into service 
in their collective capacity, and deny that they were militia if called into ser- 
vice in any other way. 

" If Congress has the power to call forth the whole enrolled force or 
militia of the States in the manner provided by the Conscription Act, there 
is certainly no obligation upon Congress ever to c(dl them forth in any other 
manner, and it rests in the discretion of Congress whether or not the States 
shall ever be permitted to exercise their reserved right, as Congress has the 
power in every cai^e to defeat the exercise of the right by calling forth the 
railitia under a Conscription Act, and not by requisitions made upon the 
States. It cannot be just to charge the States with the folly of making this 
important reservation, subject to any such power in Congress to render it 
nugatory at its pleasure. 

"Again, you say 'Congress may call forth the militia to execute Confed- 
erate laws; the Stale has not surrendered the power to call them forth to 
execute State laws.' 

"' Congress may call them forth to repel invasion; so may the State, for it 
has expressly reserved this right.' 

" ' Congress may call them forth to suppress insurrection, and so may the 
Slate.' 

"If the conscription law is to control, and Congress may, without the con- 
sent of the State Government, order every man composing the militia of the 
State, out of the State, into the Confederate service, how is the State to call 
forth her own militia, as you admit she has reserved the right to do, to exe- 
cute her own laws, suppress an insurrection in her midst, or repel an inva- 
sion of her own territory? 

" Could it have been the intention of the States to delegate to Congress 
the power to take from them without their consent the means of self-preser- 
vation, by depriving them of all the strength upon which their very existence 
depends? 



AND GOV. BEOWN UPON CONSCEIPTION. 383 

" After liiyiug down the position that the citizens of a State are not her 
militia, and affirming that the militia are ' a body organized by law,' you 
deny that the militia constitute any part of the land or naval forces, and say 
they are distinguished from the land and naval forces ; and you further say 
they have always been called forth as 'bodies organized by the States,' with 
their officers ; that they ' do not become part of the armies rained by Con- 
gress,' but remain militia; and that when they had been called forth, and 
the exigencies which provoked the call had passed, 'they went home again.' 
The militia when called forth are taken from the body of the people, to meet 
an emergency, or to repel invasion. If they go in as 'bodies organized by 
the States,' you hold that they go in militia, remain militia, and when the 
exigency is passed they go home militia ; but if you call forth the same men 
by tlie Cont^cription Act for the same purpose, and they remain for the same 
length of time, and do the same service, they are not militia, but the armies 
of the Confederacy, part of the laud or naval force. In connection with this 
part of the subject you use the following language : 

" ' At the present moment, when our very existence is threatened by armies 
vastly superior in numbers to ours, the necessity for defence has induced a 
call, not for the whole militia of all the States, not for any militia, but for 
men to compose armies for the Confederate States.' 

" In the midst of such pressing danger, why was it that there was no 
necessity for any militia; in other words, no necessity for any 'bodies of 
men organized by the States,* as were many of the most gallant regiments 
now in the Confederate service, who have won on the battle-field a name in 
history, and laurels that can never fade? 

" Were no more such bodies ' organized by the States ' needed, because 
the material remaining within the States of which they must be composed 
was not reliable? The Conscription Act gives you the very same material. 
Was it because the officers appointed by the States to command the gallant 
State regiments and other 'organized bodies' sent by the States were less 
brave or less skilful than the officers appointed by the President to command 
similar ' organized bodies ' ? The officers appointed by the States who now 
command regiments in the service, will not fear to have impartial history 
answer this question. Was it because you wished select men for the armies 
of the Confederacy ? The Conscription Act embraces all, without distinc- 
tion, between eighteen and thirty-five able to do military duty and not legally 
exempt. You do not take the militia. What do you take? You take every 
man between certain ages, of whom the militia is composed. What is the 
difference between taking the militia and taking all the men who compose 
the militia? Simply this : In the one case you take them with their officers 
appointed by the States, as the Constitution requires, and call them by their 
proper name, 'militia,' 'employed in the service of the Confederate States.' 
In the other case you take them all as individuals — get rid of the State 
officers — appoint officers of your own choice, and call them the ' armies of 



384 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

the Confederacy.' And yet these .armies, like you say the militia do, will 
'go home' when the exigency has passed, as it is hoped they are not ex- 
pected to be. permanent like the regular armies of the Confederacy; or, in 
other words, like the land and naval forces provided for in the Constitution, 
from which you distinguish the militia. Indeed, the similarity between 
these 'armies of the Confederacy,' called forth in an emergency, to repel an 
invasion, to be disbanded when the emergency is passed; and the militia or 
bodies of troops organized and officered by the States, called forth for the 
same purpose, to be composed of the same material and disbanded at the 
same time, is most remarkable in everything, except the name and the ap- 
pointment of the officers. 

"Excuse me for caUing your attention to another point in this connection. 

" As you admit that the militia have always been called forth as ' bodies 
organized by the States,' and when thus called forth that the States have 
always appointed the officers, I presume you will not deny that when the 
President, by authority of Congress, has made a call upon a State for ' organ- 
ized bodies of soldiers,' and they have been furnished by the State from the 
body of her people, they have entered the service as part of the militia of 
the State ' employed in the service of the Confederate States ' under the 1.5th 
and 16th paragraphs of the 8th section of the 1st article of the Constitution. 

" Your message to Congress recommending its passage shows that there 
was no necessity for the act, to enable you to get troops, as you admit that 
the Executives of the States had enabled you to keep in the field adequate 
forces, and also that the spirit of resistance among the people was such that 
it needed to be legulated and not stimulated. You say: 

" ' I am happy to assure you of the entire harmony of purpose and cordial- 
ity of feeling which have continued to exist between myself and the Execu- 
tives of the several States, and it is to this cause that our success in keeping 
adequate forces in the field is to be attributed.' Again you say : 

" ' The vast preparations made by the enemy for a combined assault at 
numerous points on our frontier and sea-coast have produced the result that 
might have been expected. They have animated the people with a spirit of 
resistance so general, so resolute, and so self-sacrificing, that it requires 
rather to be regulated than to be stimulated.' 

" If then the Executives of the States by their cordial co-operation had 
enabled you to keep in the field ' adequate forces,' and the spirit of resistance 
was as high as you state, there was no need of a conscription act to enable 
you to ' raise armies.' 

" Since the invasion of the Confederacy by our present enemy, you have 
made frequent calls upon me, as Governor of this State, for 'organized 
bodies ' of troops. I have responded to every call and sent them as required, 
'organized' according to the laws of the State, and commanded by officers 
appointed by the State, and in most instances fully armed, accoutred, and 
equipped. These bodies were called forth to meet an emergency, and assist 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 385 

in repelling an invasion. The emergency is not yet passed, the invasion is 
not yet repelled, and they have not yet returned home. If your position be 
correct, they constitute no part of the laml or naval forces, as they were not 
organizid nor their officers appointed by the President, as is the case with 
the armies of the Confederacy, but they were called forth as bodies 'organized 
and their officers appointed by the States.' Hence they are part of the 
militia of Georgia employed in the service of the Confederate States as pro- 
vided by the two paragraphs of the Constitution above quoted, and by para- 
graph 16 of section 9 of the 1st article, which terms them 'militia in actual 
service in time of war or public danger.' They entered the service with 
only the training common to the citizens of the State. They are now well 
trained troops. But having gone in as ' bodies organized by the State,' or as 
militia, you say they remain militia, and go home militia. In this case we 
seem to agree that the State, under the express reservation in the Constitu- 
tion, has the right to appoint the officers. I have the written opinion of Mr. 
Benjamin, then Secretary of War, about the time of the last call for twelve 
regiments, concurring in this view, and recognizing this right of the State. 
And it is proper that I should remark tliat the State has, in each case, been 
permitted to exercise this right, when the troops entered the service in com- 
pliance with a requisition upon the State for 'organized bodies of troops.' 
The right does not stop here, however. The Constitution does not say the 
State shall appoint the officers while the organizations may be forming to 
enter the service of the Confederacy, but while they ' may be employed in 
the service of the Confederate States.' Many thousands are now so employed. 
Vacancies in the different offices are frequently occurring by death, resigna- 
tion, etc. The laws of this State provide how these vacancies are to be filled, 
and it is not to be done by promotion of the officer next in rank, except in a 
single instance, but by election of the regiment, and commission by the 
Governor. The right of the State to appoint these officers seems to be 
admitted, and is indeed too clear to be questioned. 

"The Conscription Act, if it is to be construed according to its language, 
and the practice which your generals are establishing under it, denies to the 
State the exercise of this right, and prescribes a rule for selecting all officers 
in future, unknown to the laws of Georgia, and confers upon the President 
the power to commission them. Can this usurpation (I think no milder term 
expresses it faithfully) be justified under the clause in the Constitution which 
gives Congress power to ' raise armies '? and is this part of the Act constitu- 
tional? If not, you have failed to establish the constitutionality of the Con- 
scription Act. 

" The 14th paragraph of the 9th section of the 1st article of the Constitu- 
tion of the Confederate States declares that — 

" 'A loell regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the 
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' This was 
no part of the original Constitution as reported by the convention and 
25 



386 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

adopted by the States. But 'the convention of a number of the States hav- 
ing at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire, in order 
to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory 
and restrictive clauses should be added, Congress at the session begun and 
held at the city of New York on Wednesday the 4th of March, 1789, pro- 
posed to the Legislatures of the several States twelve amendnients, ten of 
which only were adopted.' 

" The second amendment was the one above quoted, which shows very 
clearly that the States were jealous of the control which Congress might claim 
over their militia, and required on this point a further 'restrictive clause' 
than was contained in the original Constitution. 

" The 16th paragraph of the preceding section expressly reserves to the 
States 'the authority of training the militia according to the discipline pre- 
scribed by Congress.' In connection with this, you admit that the States re- 
served the right to call forth their own militia to execute their own laws, sup- 
press insurrections or repel invasions. This authority to coll them forth would 
have been of no value without the authority to appoint officers to command 
them; and the further authority to train them; as they cannot without oncers 
and trainincf be the well rrgulaied militia which the Constitution says is 'neces- 
sary to the security of a free State.' 

" The conclusion would seem naturally to follow, that the States did not 
intend, by any general words used in the grant of power, to give Congress the 
right to take from them, as often as appointed, the officers selected by them 
to train and regulate their militia and prepare them for efBiciency, when they 
may be called forth to support the very existence of ti.e State. 

'• The Conscription Act embraces so large a proportion of the militia officers 
of this State, as to disband the militia in the event they should be compelled 
to leave their commands. This would leave me without the power to reor- 
ganize them, as a vacancy can only be created in one of these offices by resig- 
nation of the incumbent, or by the voluntary performance of some act which 
amounts to an abandonment of his command, or by a sentence of a court 
martial dismissing him from office. The officer who is dragged from his com- 
mand by conscription, or compulsion, and placed in the ranks, is in neither 
category ; and his office is no more vacated than the office of a judge would 
be, if he were ordered into military service without his consent. And unless 
there be a vacancy I have no right to fill the place, either by ordering an 
election, or by a brevet appointment. I have no right in either case to com- 
mission a successor so long as there is a legal incumbent. 

"Viewing the Conscription Act in this particular as not only miconstitu- 
tiqnal, but as striking a blow at the very existence of the State, by disband- 
ing the portion of her militia left within her limits, wiien much the larger 
part of her ' arms-bearing people ' are absent in other States in the military 
service of the Confederacy, leaving their families and other helpless women 
and children, subject to massacre by negro insurrection for want of an organ- 



AND GOV. BROWK UPON COXSCRIPTION. 387 

ized force to suppress it, I felt it an imperative duty which I owed the peo- 
ple of this State, to inform you in a former letter that I could not permit the 
disorganization to take place, nor the State officers to be compelled to leave 
their respective commands and enter the Confederate service as conscripts. 
— Were it not a fact well known to the country that you now have in service 
tens of thousands of men without arms and with no immediate prospect of 
getting arms, who must remain for months consumers of our scanty supplies 
of provisions, without ability to render service, while their labor would be 
most valuable in their farms and workshops, there might be the semblance 
of a plea of necessity for forcing the State officers to leave their commands, 
with the homes of their people unprotected, and go into camps of instruction, 
under Confederate ofBcers, often much more ignorant than themselves of 
military science or training. I must, therefore, adhere to my position and 
maiiitain the integrity of the State Government in its executive, legislative, 
judicinl and military departments, as long as I can command sufficient force 
to prevent it from being disbanded, and its people reduced to a state of pro- 
vincial dependence upon the central power. 

" If I have used strong language in any part of this letter, I beg you to at- 
tribute it only to my zeal in the advocacy of principles and a cause which I 
consider, no less than the cause of constitutional liberty, imperilled by the 
erroneous views and practice of those placed upon the watch-tower as its con- 
stant guardians. 

" In conclusion, I beg to assure you that I fully appreciate your expressions 
of personal kindness, and reciprocate them in my feelings towards you to the 
fullest extent. 

" T know the vast responsibilitfes resting upon you, and would never will- 
ingly add unnecessarily to their weight, or in any way embarrass you in the 
discharge of your important duties. — While I cannot agree with you in opin- 
ion upon the grave question under discussion, I beg you to command me at 
all times when I can do you a personal service, or when I can, without a vio- 
lation of the constitutional obligations resting upon me, do any service to the 
great cause in which we are all so vitally interested. 

" Hoping that a kind Providence may give you wisdom so to conduct the 
affairs of our young Confederacy as may result in the early achievement of 
our independence, and redound to the ultimate prosperity and happiness of 
our whole people, 

" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"Joseph E. Brow^n. 

" P. S. — Since the above letter was written I see, somewhat to my surprise, 
that you have thought proper to publish part of our unfinished correspond- 
ence. 

" In reply to my first letter you simply stated on the point in question that 



388 COREESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

the constitutionality of the Act was derivable from that paragraph in the 
Constitution which gives Congress the power to raise and support armies. I 
replied to that letter with no portion of your argument but the simple state- 
ment of your position before me. You then with the aid of your Cabinet 
replied to my second letter, giving the argument by which you attempt to sus- 
tain your position, and without allowing time for your letter to reach me, 
and a reply to be sent, you publish my second letter and your reply, which is 
your first argument of the question. I fiud these two letters not only in the 
newspapers but also in pamphlet form, I presume by your order, for general 
circulation. 

" While I cannot suppose that your sense of duty and propriety would per- 
mit you to publish part of an unfinished correspondence for the purpose of 
forestalling public opinion, I must conclude that your course is not the usual 
one in such cases. As the correspondence was an official one upon a grave 
constitutional question, I had supposed it would be given to the country 
through Congress and the Legislature of the State. 

" But as you have commenced the publication in this hasty and as I think 
informal manner, you will admit that I l)ave no other alternative but to con- 
tinue it. I must, therefore, request as an act of justice that all newspapers 
which have published part of the correspondence, insert this reply. 

"J. E. B." 



"EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,) 
EiCHMOND, July 10, 1862. ) 

"Dear Sir: — I have received your letter of 21st ult., and would have con- 
tented myself with the simple acknowledgment of its receipt but for one or 
two matters contained in it, which seem to require distinct reply. 

'* I deemed it my duty to state my views in relation to the constitutionality 
of the conscript law for the reasons mentioned in my letter to you, but it 
was no part of my intention to enter into a protracted discussion. It was 
convenient to send my views to others than yourself, and for this purpose I 
caused my letter, together with yours, to be printed in pamphlet form. I am 
not aware of having omitted any part of your observations, nor did I antici- 
pate any further correspondence on the subject. I supposed you had fully 
stated your views as I had stated mine, and no practical benefit could be 
attained by further discussion. 

" It is due however to myself to disclaim in the most pointed manner a 
doctrine which you have been pleased to attribute to me, and against which 
you indulge in lengthened argument. Neither in my letter to you, nor in 
any sentiment ever expressed by me, can there be found just cause to impute 
to me the belief that Congress is the final judge of the constitutionality of a 
contested power. 

" I said in my letter, that ' when a specific power is granted, Congress is 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON 'CONSCRIPTION. 389 

the judge whether the law passed for the purpose of executing that power 
is necessary and proper.' 

' "I never asserted, nor intended to assert, that after the passage of such 
law it might not be declared unconstitutional by tlie courts on complaint 
made by an individual; nor that the judgment of Congress was conclusive 
against a State, as supposed by you ; nor that all the co-ordinate branches 
of the general Government could together*finally decide a question of the 
reserved rights of a State. The right of each State to judge in the last 
resort whether its reserved powers had been usurped by the general Govern- 
ment, is too familiar and well settled a principle to admit of discussion. 

" As I cannot see, however, after the most respectful consideration of all 
that you have said, anything to change my conviction that Congress has 
exercised only a plainly granted specific power in raising its armies by con- , 
scription, I cannot share the alarm and concern about State rights which 
you so evidently feel, but which to me seem quite unfounded. 

" I am very respectfully yours, 

" Jefferson Davis. 
" Gov. Joseph E. Brown, 

" Atlanta, Ga." 

"Atlanta, July 22, 1862. 
"HIS EXCELLENCY JEFFERSON DAVIS: 

" Dear Sir : — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
of the 10th inst., and am very happy to know that you disclaim the doctrine 
which I think every fair-minded man has attributed to you who has read 
your letter of the 29th May last, and has construed plain English words 
according to their established meaning. 

" When a writer speaks of a tribunal that is to be ' the judge ' of a case, 
without qualification, we certainly understand him to mean that this judge 
has the right to decide the case. And if the judge has this right, the decision 
must be binding upon all the parties ; and no distinct and separate tribunal, 
as a dififerent department of the Government, for instance, has the right to 
decide the same case, after it has been decided by the judge having compe- 
tent jurisdiction. It would seem to be a contradiction in terms to say, that 
when a specific power is granted. Congress is the judge 'whether the law 
passed for the purpose of executing that power is necessary and proper,' 
and that 'the true and only test is to inquire whether the law is intended 
and calculated to carry out the object, whether it devises and creates an in- 
strumentality for executing the specific power granted ; and if the answer 
be in the affirmative, the law is constitutional ; ' and then to say, after this 
test has been applied, and Congress has passed judgment, that_ another de- 
partment of the Government, as the President, or the Judiciary, or another 
government, as a State, may take up the case thus decided by the tribunal 
having, under the Constitution, complete jurisdiction, and make a difierent 



390 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

decision. It is, T believe, an established principle in all civilized nations, 
that when a court of competent jurit^diction — unless guilty of frand or mis- 
take — has finally decided a case, the judgment is conclusive upon all the 
parties. 

" But you say you never asserted, nor intended to assert, that the judg- 
ment of Congress was conclusive against a State. Pardon me for saying 
that you did assert that Congress is the judge, and that you did not qualify 
the assertion by saying the judge in the first instance, nor did you annex 
any other qualification or exception in favor of tlie rights of a State or any 
other party. I had no right therefore to suppose that you intended to 
ingraft exceptions upon a rule which you laid down in the plainest terms 
without exception. 

. " I make the above reference to your former letter, to show that I had no 
disposition to do you injustice, and that I do not consider that I misrepre- 
sented your position, as contained in your letter. The thousands of intelli- 
gent citizens, in different parts of the Confederacy, who have placed upon 
your letter the same construction which 1 had, will doubtless be gratified 
that you now disclaim the dangerous doctrine as to the power of Congress, 
to which your strong unqualified language seemed clearly to commit you. 

" In reference to the publication by you of the two letters containing part 
of our conespondence, I need only say that you had devoted a large portion 
of your letter to a reply to my argument which was before you, and had in 
the same letter, for the first time, given the arguments by which you main- 
tain your own position. These I had never seen; and as you had replied at 
length to my argumeut, it was, I think, but fair and just, according to all 
rules of discussion, that I have an opportunity to reply to yours, and that 
the whole case be submitted to the country together. Unless there were 
important reasons of state which in your judgment made it necessary to 
place the di.-cussion before the countiy incomplete, in order to satisfy the 
discontents which existed in the public mind, on account of what a very 
Lirge proportion of our people regard as a dangerous usurpation, or unless 
other good reasons existed for a departure from the usual rule in such cases, 
I am unable to see why the whole correspondence, when given to the public, 
should not have gone tlirough tiie usual official channels. 

'* I have certainly had no wish to protract the discussion of this question, 
further than duty, and justice to the people of this State required. I feel 
that I cannot close, however, without again earnestly inviting your attention 
to a question wliich you must admit is 'practical.' 

"I think I have established beyond a doubt, in my former letters, the con- 
stitutional right of tlie State of Georgia to appoint the officers to command 
the regiments and battalions which she has sent into the service of the Con- 
fedeiate States, in compliance with requisitions made by you upon her Ex- 
ecutive for 'organized bodies' of troops. You admitted in your letter that 
these bodies ' organized by the States,' when called forth by the Confederacy 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCRIPTION. 391 

to repel invasion, never came otiierwise than with their company, field, and 
fje.neral officers. Your former secretary of war, now secretary of state, has 
also admitted the right of the State to appoint the officers to command the 
troops sent by her into the service of the Confederacy, under requisition 
from you. 

" You have not thought proper in either of your letters to give any reason 
why the State should be denied the exercise of this clear constitutional rii;ht. 
In this state of the case you still exercise the appointing power which 
belongs to the State, and commission the officers who are to command these 
troops. The laws of this State give to these gallant men the right to elect 
their own officers, and have them commissioned by the Executive of tlieir 
own State. This question is of the more practical importance at present, on 
account of a large number of gallant officers belonging to these regiments 
having lately fallen upon the battle-field, whose places are to be filled by 
others. The troops volunteered at the call of the State, with a knowledge 
of their right to elect those who are to command them, and went into the 
field with the assurance that they would be permitted to exercise this right. 
]t is now denied them under the Conscription Act. Some of them have 
appealed to me to see that their rights are protected. As an act of justice 
to brave men, who by their deeds of valor have rendered their names im- 
mortal, and as an act of duty, which as her Executive I owe to the people of 
this State, I must be pardoned for again demanding for the Georgia State 
troops, now under your command, permission in all cases in which they 
have already been deprived of it, or which may hereafter arise, to have the 
company, field, and general officers, who are to command them, appointed by 
election, and commissioned from the Executive of Georgia, as guaranteed to 
them by the Constitution of the Confederacy and the laws of this State. 

" I make this demand with the greater confidence in view of the past 
history of your life. I have not the documents before me, but if I mistake 
not. President Polk, during the war against Mexico, in which you were the 
colonel of a gallant Mississippi regiment, tendered you the appointment of 
brigadier-general for distinguished services upon the battle-field, and you 
declined the appointment upon the ground that the President had no light 
under the Constitution to appoint a brigadier-general to command the State 
volunteers then employed in the service of the United States, but that the 
States, and not the General Government, had the right, under the Con- 
stitution, to make such appointments. If Congress could not at that time 
confer upon the President the right under the Constitution to appoint a 
brigadier-general to command State troops in the service of the Confederacy, 
Congress certainly cannot now, under the same constitutional provisions, 
confer upon the President the rig!;t to appoint, not only the hrigadier-gen- 
eral<, but also all the field and company officers of State troops employed 
in the service of the Confederacy. May I not reasonably hope that the 
right for which I contend will be speedily recognized, and that you will give 



392 CORRESPONDEiSrCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

notice to the Georgia State troop?, r.ow under your control, who went into 
service under requisitions made upon the State by you, that they will no 
longer be denied the practical benefit resulting from the recognition. 

"You conclude your letter by saying, 'you cannot share the alarm and 
concern about State rights which I so evidently feel.' I regret that you can- 
not. The views and opinions of the best of men, are, however, influenced 
more or less by the positions in which they are placed, and the circumstances 
by which they are surrounded. It is probably not unnatural that those who 
administer the affairs and dispense the patronage of a confederation of 
States should become, to some extent, biased in favor of the claims of the 
Confederacy when its powers are questioned; while it is equally natural that, 
those who administer the affairs of the States, and are responsible for the 
protection of their rights, should be the first to sound the alarm, in case of 
encroachments by the Confederacy, which tend to the subversion of the 
rights of the States. This principle of human nature may be clearly traced 
in the history of the government of the United States. While that govern- 
ment encroached upon the rights of the States from time to time, and was 
fast concentrating the whole power in its own hands, it is worthy of remark, 
that the Federal Executive, exercising the vast powers and dispensing the 
immense patronage of his position, has seldom, if ever, been able to 'share 
in the alarm and concern about State rights,' which have on so many oc- 
casions been felt by the authorities and people of the respective States. 

" With renewed assurances of my high consideration and esteem, 
" I am, very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"Joseph E. Brown." 



Copy of a Letter to Peesident Davis, to which no 
reply ha6 been eeceived. 

"Canton, Ga., Oct. 18, 1862. 
"HIS EXCELLENCY, JEFFERSON DAVIS: 

Dear Sir : — The Act of Congress passed at its late session extending the 
Conscription Act, unlike its predecessor, of which it is amendatory, gives you 
power, in certain contingencies, of the happening of which you must be the 
judge, to suspend its operation, and accept troops from the States under any 
of the former acts upon that subject. By former acts you were authorized to 
accept troops frotn the States organized into companies, battalions and regi- 
ments. The Conscription Act of 16th of April last repealed these acts, but 
the late act revives them when you suspend it. 

" For the reasons then given, I entered my protest against the first Con- 
scription Act on account of its unconstitutionality, and refused to permit the 
enrolment of any State officer, civil or military, who was necessary to the in- 



AND GOV. BROWN" UPON CONSCEIPTION. 393 

tegrity of the State government. But on account of the emergencies of the 
country, growing out of the neglect of the Confederate authorities to call 
upon the States for a sufficient amount of additional force to supply the 
places of the twelve-months troops, and on account of tlie repeal of the former 
laws upon that subject, having, for the time, placed it out of your power to 
accept troops organized by the States in the constitutional mode, I inter- 
posed no active resistance to the enrolment of persons in this State between 
eighteen and thirty-five, who wei-e not officers necessary to the maintenance 
of the government of the State. 

" The first Conscription Act took from the State only part of her military 
force. She retained her officers and all her militia between thirty-five and 
forty-five. Her military organization was neither disbanded nor destroyed. 
She had permitted a heavy draft to be made upon it, without constitutional 
authority, rather than her fidelity to our cause should be questioned, or 
the enemy should gain any advantage gi'owing out of what her authoi'ities 
might consider unwise councils. But she still retained an organization, sub- 
ject to the command of her constituted authorities, which she could use for 
the protection of her public property, the execution of her laws, the repul- 
sion of invasion, or the suppression of servile insurrection which our insid- 
ious foe now proclaims to the world that it is his intention to incite, which 
if done may result in an indiscriminate massacre of helpless women and 
children. 

"At this critical period in our public affairs, when it is absolutely neces- 
sary that each State keep an organization for home protection, Congress, with 
your sanction, has extended the Conscription Act to embrace all between 
thirty-five and forty-five subject to military duty, giving you the power to 
suspend the act as above stated. If you refuse to exercise this power and 
are permitted to take all between thirty-five and forty-five as conscripts, 
you disband and destroy all military organization in this State, and leave her 
I people utterly powerless to protect their own families, even against their own 
slaves. Not only so, but you deny to those between thirty-five and forty-five 
a privilege of electing the officers to command them, to which, under the 
Constitution of the Confederacy and the laws of this State, they are clearly 
entitled, which has been allowed to other troops from the State, and was, to 
a limited extent, allowed even to those between eighteen and thirty-five 
under the act of 16th April, as that act did allow them thirty days within 
"which to volunteer, under such officers as they might select, who chanced at 
the time to have commissions from the War Department to raise regiments. 
" If you deny this rightful privilege to those between thirty-five and forty- 
five, and refuse to accept them as volunteers with officers selected by them in 
accordance with the laws of their State, and attempt to compel them to enter 
the service as conscripts, my opinion is, your orders will only be obeyed by 
many of them when backed by an armed force which they have no power to 
resist. 



394 CORRESPONDENCE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS 

" The late act, if I construe it correctly, does not give those between thirty- 
five and forty-five the privilege under any circumstances of volunteering and 
forming themselves into regimental organizations, but compels them to enter 
the present organizations as privates under officers heretofore selected by 
others, until all the present organizations are filled to their maximum 
number. 

" This injustice can only be avoided by the exercise of the power given you 
to suspend the act, and call upon the States for organized companies, battal- 
ions and regiments. I think the history of the past justifies me in saying 
that the public interest cannot suffer by the adoption of this course. When 
you made a requisition upon me in the early part of February last, for twelve 
regiments, I had them all, with a large additional number in the field, subject 
to your command and ready for service, in about one month. It has now 
been over six months since the passage of the first Conscription Act, and 
your officers during that time have not probably enrolled and carried into 
service from this State conscripts exceeding one-fourth of the number 
furnished by me as volunteers in one month, while the expense of getting 
the conscripts into service has probably been four times as much as it cost 
to get four times the number of volunteers into the field. 

" In consideration of these facts I trust you will not hesitate to exercise 
the power given you by the Act of Congress and make an early requisition 
(which I earnestly invite) upon the Executive of this State for her just quota 
of the additional number of troops necessary to be called out to meet the 
hosts of the invader — the troops to be organized into companies, battalions, 
and regiments, in accordance with the laws of this State. 

" The prompt and patriotic response made by the people of Georgia to 
every call for volunteers justifies the reasonable expectation that I shall be 
able to fill your requisition in a short time after it is made and authorizes 
me in advance to pledge prompt compliance. This can be done, too, when 
left to the State authorities, in such way as not to disband nor destroy her 
military organization at home, which must be kept in existence to be used 
in case of servile insurrection or other pressing necessity. 

"If you should object to other new organizations on the ground that they 
are not efficient, I beg to invite your attention to the conduct of the newly 
organized regiments of Georgians, and iadeed of troops from all the States, 
upon the plains of Manassas, in the battles before Richmond, upon James 
Island near Charleston, at Shiloh, at Richmond, Kentucky, and upon every 
battle-field whenever and wherever they have met the invading forces. If it 
is said that some of our old regiments are almost decimated, not having more 
than enough men in a regiment to form a single company, that it is too ex- 
pensive to keep these small bands in the field as regiments, and that justice 
to the officers requires that they be filled up by conscripts, I reply, that in- 
justice should never be done to the troops for the purpose of saving a few 
dollars of expense; and that justice to the men now called into the field as 



AND GOV. BE0W:N" UPON CONSCRIPTION. 395 

imperatively requires that they shall have the privilege allowed to other 
troops to exercise the constitutional right of entering the service under offi- 
cers selected and appointed as directed by the laws of their own State as it 
does that officers in service shall not be deprived of their commands when 
their regiments are worn out or destroyed. 

'• Our officers have usually exposed themselves in the van of the fight and 
shared the fate of their men. Hence but few of the original experienced 
officers who went to the field with our old regiments, which have won so bright 
a name in history, now survive, but their places have been filled by others 
appointed in most cases by the President. They have, therefore, no just 
cause to claim that the right of election which belongs to every Georgian 
shall be denied to all who are hereafter to enter the service for the purpose 
of sustaining them in the offices which tiiey now fill. 

" If it becomes necessary to disband any regiment on account of its small 
numbers, let every officer and private be left perfectly free to unite with such 
new volunteer association as he thinks proper, and ia the organization and 
selection of officers it is but reasonable to suppose that modest merit and 
experience will not be overlooked. 

" The late Act of Congress, if executed in this State, not only does gross 
injustice to a large class of her citizens, utterly destroys all State military 
organizations, and encroaches upon the reserved rights of the State, but 
strikes down her sovereignty at a single blow and tears from her the right 
arm of strength by which she alone can maintain her exis ence and protect 
those most dear to her and most dependent upon her. The representatives 
of the people will meet in General Assembly on the 6th day of next month, 
and I feel that I should be recreant to the high trust reposed in me were I to 
permit the virtual destruction of the Government of the State before they 
shall have had time to convene, deliberate, and act. 

" Referring, in connection with the considerations above mentioned, to 
our former correspondence, for the reasons which satisfy my mind beyond 
doubt of the unconstitutionality of the Conscription Acts, and to the fact 
that a judge in this State, of great ability, in a case regularly brought before 
him in his judicial capacity, has pronounced the law unconstitutional; and 
to the further fact that Congress has lately passed an additional Act author- 
izing you to suspend the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus, doubtless 
with a view of denying to the judiciary in this very case the exercise of its 
constitutional functions for the protection of personal liberty, I can no longer 
avoid the responsibility of discharging a duty which I owe to the people of 
this State by informing you that I cannot permit the enrolment of conscripts 
under the late Act of Congress entitled ' An Act to amend the Act further to 
provide for the common defence,' until the General Assembly of this State 
shall have convened and taken action in the premises. 

" The plea of necessity set up for conscription last spring, when I withheld 
active resistance to a very heavy draft upon the military organization of the 



396 COERESPONDENCE OF PEESIDENT DAVIS 

State under the first Conscription Act, cannot be pleaded after the brilliant 
successes of our gallant armies during the summer and fall campaign which 
have been achieved by troops who entered the service, not as conscripts, but 
as volunteers. If more troops are needed to meet coming emergencies, call 
upon the State and you shall have them as volunteers much more rapidly than 
your enrolling officers can drag conscripts, like slaves 'in chains,' to camps of 
instruction. And who that is not blinded by prejudice or ambition can 
doubt that they will be much more effective as volunteers than as conscripts? 
The volunteer enters the service of his own free will. He regards the war 
as much his own as the Government's war ; and is ready, if need be, to offer 
his life a willing sacrifice upon his country's altar. Hence it is tliat our vol- 
unteer armies have been invincible when contending against vastly superior 
numbers with every advantage which the best equipments and supplies can 
afford. Not so with the conscript. He may be as ready as any citizen of the 
State to volunteer if permitted to enjoy the constitutional rights which have 
been allowed to others in the choice of his officers and associates. But if 
these are denied him and he is seized like a serf and hurried into an associa- 
tion repulsive to his feelings and placed under officers in whom he has no 
confidence, he then feels that this is the Government's war, not his ; that he 
is the mere instrument of arbitrary power, and that he is no longer laboring 
to establish constitutional liberty, but to build up a military despotism for its 
ultimate but certain overthrow. Georgians will never refuse to volunteer as 
long as there is an enemy upon our soil and a call for their services. But if 
I mistake not the signs of the times they will require the Government to 
respect their plain constitutional rights. 

"Surely no just reason exists why you should refuse to accept volunteers 
when tendered, and insist on replenishing your armies by conscription and 
coercion of freemen. 

" The question then is not whether you shall have Georgia's quota of 
troops, for they are freely offered — tendered in advance — but it is whether you 
shall accept them when tendered as volunteer?, organized as the Constitution 
and laws direct, or shall, when the -decision is left with you, insist on reject- 
ing volunteers and dragging the free citizens of this State into your armies 
as conscripts. Xo Act of the Government of the United States prior to the 
secession of Georgia struck a blow at constitutional liberty so fell as has 
been stricken by the Conscription Acts. The people of this State had ample 
cause, however, to justify their separation from the old Government. They 
acted coolly and deliberately in view of all the responsibilities ; and they 
stand ready to-day to sustain their action at all hazards and to resist sub- 
mission to the Lincoln Government and the reconstruction of the old Union 
to the expenditure of their last dollar and the sacrifice of their last life. 
Having entered into the revolution freemen, they intend to emerge from it 
freemen. And if I mistake not the character of the sons, judged by the 
action of their fathers against Federal encroachments under Jackson, Troup, 



AND GOV. BROWN UPON CONSCEIPTION. 397 

and Gilmer, respectively, as executive officers, they will refuse to yield their 
sovereignty to usurpation and will require the Government, which is the 
common agent of all the States, to move within the sphere assigned it by the 
Constitution. 

"Very respectfully, your obedient servant, , 

" Joseph E. Bkown." 



CHAPTER XII. 

Correspondence of Governor Brown and A. Fullar- 
TON, British Consul at Savannah. 

In July, 1863, Governor Brown, desiring to raise for 
home defence a force of eight thousand men not in the 
Confederate army, issued a call for volunteers accom- 
panied by an order for a draft, in the event a sufficient 
number of men did not respond. This order included all 
persons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, 
of citizens as well as foreign subjects residing within the 
State. It drew out from the Hon. A. Fullarton, British 
consul at Savannah, a strong protest in behalf of those 
subjects of his government who asked his protection, 
which led to an able, sharp, and interesting correspond- 
ence upon the subject of the liability of foreign subjects 
to compulsory service, which we present entire. 

"BRITISH consulate,} 

Savannah, July 22, 1863. ' \ 
" TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOV. BROWN, Marietta : 

" A.S'tV; — My attention has been called to your proclamation, and to General 
Wayne's general order No. 16 attached thereto, ordering a draft on the 4th 
of August from persons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, in- 
cluding British subjects, in each county which does not furnish its quota of. 
volunteers to complete the number of 8,000 men required for home defence. 

"I am informed that this force when organized is to be turned over to the 
Confederate government. British subjects, if drafted, will then be forced to 
become Confederate soldiers, a position in which Her Majesty's government 
have, since the commencement of the war, contended they ought not to be 
placed, and from which Her Majesty's consuls have been instructed to use 
every means at their command to preserve them. 

" Her Majesty's government acknowledges the right of a foreign State to 



CORRESPONDENCE. 399 

claim tlie services of British subjects resident within its limits, for the pur- 
pose of maintaining internal order (in other words, to act as a local police 
force), and even, to a limited extent, to defend against local invasion by afor- 
eiijn power the places of their residence ; but they deny the claim to services 
beyond this, and accordingly I have given advice in the following sense to 
British subjects who have applied to me on the subject of this draft : that 
militia duty is in general an obligation incident to foreign residence, and 
that therefore they must not object to render the service required so long as 
the law requires a militia organization for the maintenance of internal peace 
and order. But if it shall so happen that the militia, after being so organ- 
ized, shall be brought into conflict with the forces of the United States with- 
out being turned over to the Confederate States so as to form a component 
part of its armies, or if it should be so turned over, in either event, the serv- 
ice required would be such as British subjects cannot be expected to per- 
form ; in the first case, in addition to the ordinary accidents of war, they 
would be liable to be treated as rebels and traitors, and not as prisoners of 
•war ; and in the second case, they would be under the operation of a law (re- 
quiring them to take up arms against the United States government), which 
had no existence when for commercial purposes they first took up their 
residence in this country, and would, moreover, be disobeying the order of 
tlieir legitimate sovereign, whjch exhorts them to an observance of the strict- 
est neutrality, and subjects them to severe penalties. For all local service, 
however, short of the service I have endeavored to describe, I have advised 
them that the militia organization is lawful and should be acquiesced in by 
resident British subjects. 

"Nearly all British subjects have besides taken an oath that they will not, 
under any circumstances, take i>art in the contest now raging in this coun- 
try by taking up arms on either side. 

"I hope, sir, you will therefore so modify the general order in respect of 
British subjects who have certificates from me, as to release them from a posi- 
tion which, in the event of a draft, will certainly render them liable to all 
the penalties denounced by their own sovereign against a violation of their 
neutrality, calling upon them at the same time to render service as local 
poUce for the maintenance of internal peace and order. 

"On a former occasion, Mr. Molyneux advised you that the consulate was 
placed under my charge during his absence. I recently submitted my au- 
thority to act as Iler Majesty's consul to Mr. Benjamin, who duly ac- 
corded to me his approval and recognition. 

" I am, sir, your most obedient servant, 

" A. FuLLARTON. Acting Consul." 



400 COKKESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

" Marietta, August 8, 1863. 
"MR. A. FULLARTOX, Acting Consul of Great Britain: 

'■^ Dear Sir: — Youi' letter of 22d July reached these headquarters during 
my absence, which has caused delay in my reply. 

*' Judging from your communication, I am obliged to conclude that you 
have not correctly understood the objects of the government in organizing 
the 8,000 men for home defence. 

"You admit the right of the State to claim the services of British subjects 
resident withia its limits for the purpose of maintaining ' internal order,' 
and even to a limited extent to defend the places of their residence against 
local invasion hy a foreign power. In view of this correct admission on your 
part, I do not deem it necessary to quote authority to show the obligation of 
Her Majesty's subjects to render the service now called for. To maintain 
' internal order,' and to defend to a limited extent ' against local invasion by a 
foreign power,' are the sole objects of the proposed military organization. 

" While the men are to be mustered into service for the purpose of afford- 
ing them the rights and privileges of prisoners of war, in case of capture by 
the enemy, and to enable the government to command them without delay 
in case of sudden emergency, it is not proposed to take them from their 
homes, or to interrupt their ordinary avocations, unless it be a case of sudden 
emergency or pressing necessity, for the defence of their homes, or such local- 
ities as command their homes, when in the hands of the enemy. 

" The government of the United States, in violation of the usages of civil- 
ized warfare, is now resorting to every means within its power to incite servile 
insurrection in our midst. It is not only stealing our slaves, which are private 
property, or taking them by open robbery, mustering them into its service, 
and arming them against us, but it is doing all it can by secret agencies, to 
stir up and excite the angry passion of the mass of ignorant slaves in the in- 
terior, whom it can neither reach by theft nor robbery, to cause them to rise 
in rebellion against their masters, with whom they are now comfortable and 
happy, and to set fire to our cities, towns, villages, and other property. It is 
needless for me to add that in case they should be successful in inciting in- 
surrection to this point, the butchery of helpless women and children will 
doubtless be the result. 

"As a means of accomplishing this object, as well as of destroying public 
and private property, the enemy is now preparing to send cavalry raids as 
far as possible into this and other States of the Confederacy. These robber 
bands will, no doubt, burn and destroy property where they go, carry off as 
many slaves as they can, and attempt to stir up others with whom they come 
in contact, to insurrection, robbery, and murder. 

" Jt is not expected that the 8,000 men called for by my proclamation, and 
the general oi'der to which you refer, will be used against the regular armies 
of the United States. The provisional armies of the Confederate States have 
shown themselves fully able to meet the enemy upon an hundred battle-fields, 



* AND THE BRITISH COI^SUL. 401 

and to drive them back with severe chastisement, wherever they have not 
had the advantage of their navy as a support. But it is expected that this 
home organization, while it may be but little of its time in actual service, 
will, in case of sudden emergency, assist in repelling the plundering bands of 
the enemy, which evade contact with our armies, and make predatory incur- 
sions to our very homes for the purposes already mentioned, and that they 
will assist in suppressing any servile insurrections which these plundering 
parties may be able to incite. 

" Many who claim to be Her Majesty's subjects in this State are large slave- 
holders, whose danger of loss of propei-ty and of insult and cruel injury to 
their wives and children, in case of insurrection, is as great as the danger to 
the citizens of this State, and their obligation to protect their pi-operty and 
their families against the local aggressions of the United States forces is no 
less. 

"While Her Majesty's government has constantly refused to recognize the 
existence of the government of the Confederate States, her subjects have en- 
joyed its protection. And while she refuses to hold any diplomatic relations 
with us, you, as her representative, are pennhted to represent her interests 
here, and to be heard for the protection of her subjects and their property. 
In this state of things, British subjects who still elect to remain in the Con- 
federacy should not expect to do less than the service now required of them ; 
and while free egress will in no case be denied them, should they desire to 
depart from this State, less than the service now required will not in future 
be demanded, in case they choose to remain in the State and enjoy its pro- 
tection. 

"Experience has convinced the government at Washington of its inability, 
by armed force in the battle-field, to combat Southern valor and compel us to 
submit to its despotic tyranny. It has, therefore, in connection with that 
above mentioned, adopted the further policy of destroying agricultural imple- 
ments, mills, and provisions, wherever its armies penetrate into our country, 
with a view of eifecting by starvation that which it cannot accomplish by the 
skill and courage of its troops. 

" As a further auxiliary to the accomplishment of this object, it drives from 
the territory' overrun by its armies, the men, women and children who are 
true to the government of their choice, and compels them to seek safety and 
support in this and other interior States. It thus taxes the productions of 
the interior States with the support, not only of their own population and the 
armies of the Confederacy, but of a large number of refugees. With the 
blessings of Divine Providence, which, thanks to His name, have been so 
abundantly showered upon us, we are, by abandoning the culture of cotton, 
making ample supplies for another year. While we are surrounded by such 
an enemy, the British government cannot fail to see and appreciate the rea- 
son why we cannot afford to retain and protect among us a class of con- 
sumers who produce none of the necessaries of life, and who refuse to take 
26 



402 CORRESPONDENCE OF GOV. BEOWN 

up arms for interior or local defence, but claim the privilege of remainintif as 
subjects of foreign powers, engaged in commercial pursuits, in ports with 
which their government recognizes no legal commerce. 

" But you insist that there was no law in existence requiring British sub- 
jects to take up arms against the United States government, when for com- 
mercial purposes they first took up their residence in the country. You 
must not forget, however, in this connection, that at that time the State of 
Georgia was by her own sovereign consent, a component part of the govern- 
ment of the United States, and that since that time she has, for just cause, 
withdrawn her consent to further connection with the aggressive States of 
the North, and now with her Southern sisters forms the government of 
the Confederate States, against which the States which remain united under 
the name of United States, are waging a cruel and unjust war. With this 
change in the political relations of the country, new obligations are imposed 
upon the subjects of foreign powers resident within this and other Southern 
States, which make it their duty to aid in the maintenance of internal order 
and in the protection of their domiciles and the localities where they are 
situated, when assailed by the troops of the United States government, or to 
depart from the States and seek protection elsewhere. Again, the com- 
mercial reasons which you say caused Her Majesty's subjects to take up 
their residence here, ceased to exist when Her Majesty's government refused 
longer to recognize the existence of legal commerce between her subjects 
and the citizens of this State and warned them of the loss of her protection 
if they attempted to carry on commercial relations with us through our ports. 

" At the time English subjects took up their residence among our people 
for commercial purposes, our ports were open to the commerce of the world, 
and foreign governments which had commercial treaties with us had a right 
to claim for their subjects engaged in commerce the usual commercial 
privileges and protection while domiciled here. 

" Now the government of the United States claims that it has our porta 
blockaded ; and while the whole civilized world knows that the blockade is 
not effective, and that vessels enter and clear almost daily at our ports, 
the government of Her Majesty chooses to recognize it as a legal blockade, 
and to acquiesce in the paper prohibition which excludes English subjects 
with their commerce from our ports. If the British government adopts the 
preterisions of the government of the United States, and holds that Charleston 
and Savannah are still ports belonging to the United States, it must be 
admitted tliat the blockade of these ports by the United States government 
is a palpable violation of the commercial treaty stipulations between the 
two governments, as the United States government has no right, under 
these treaties, to blockade her own ports against English commerce. If 
tested by the laws of nations, to which the British government is a party, it 
is no blockade because not effective. Under these circumstances if the gov- 
ernment of Her Majesty consents to respect the orders of the United States 



AND THE BRITISH CONSUL. 403 

government, which forbid British subjects to enter our ports for commercial 
purposes, that government has no right, while this state of things continues, 
to claim commercial privileges for its subjects within the ports whfere it 
admits the existence of a legal blockade ; but it must expect those subjects 
to depart from these ports, and if they refuse to do so, it has no just cause 
of complaint when the government having possession of these ports compels 
them to take up arms to defend their domiciles against servile insurrection or 
the attacks of the troops of a hostile power. 

" I learu from your letter that ' nearly all British subjects have taken an 
oath that they will not, under any circumstances, take part in the contest 
now raging in this country, by taking up arms on either side.' In reply to 
this, permit me to remind you that no such self-imposed obligation can free 
the subjects of Her Majesty who choose to remain in this State, from the 
higher obligation, which, by the laws of nations, they are under to the 
State for protection while they remain within its limits. 

" While I beg to assure you that it is the sincere desire of the government 
and people of this State, to cultivate the most friendly relations with her 
Majesty's government and people, I feel it my duty, for the reasons already 
given, to dechne any modification of the order to which you refer in your 
communication. 

"With high consideration and esteem, I am, 
" Very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 
, " Joseph E. Bkow^n." 



"BRITISH CONSULATE, } 
Savannah, Aug. 17, 1863. ) 

«' TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR BROWN, Marietta : 

" Sir: — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's 
letter of the 8th inst. 

" I perfectly understood the intentions of the government in organizing 
the force of 8,000 men for home defence, but I am obliged to conclude that 
you have misunderstood me when I admitted the light of a State to claim 
the services of British subjects resident within its limits for the purpose of 
maintaining internal order, and even to a limited extent, to defend the 
places of their residence against local invasion by a foreign power. Such 
service might be rendered by them in the event of a war by a foreign power, 
but not in a civil war like that which liow rages on this continent. 

" Her Majesty's government consider that the plainest notions of reason 
and justice forbid that a foreigner admitted to reside for peaceful purposes 
in a State forming part of a Federal Union should be compelled by that State 
to take an active part in hostilities against other States which when he be- 
came a resident were members of one and the same Confederacy. While 



404 COERESPOI^DENCE OF GOV. BR0W:N" 

acknowledging the right of the State, under present circumstances, to the 
services of British subjects for patrol or police duty, Her Majesty's govern- 
ment object to any further extension of such service. I have consequently, 
under instructions, felt myself compelled to advise those drafted to acquiesce 
in the duty until they are required to leave their immediate homes or to 
meet the United States forces in actual conflict ; in that event to throw down 
their arms and refuse to render a service the performance of which would 
run directly in the teeth of Her Majesty's proclamation and render them 
liable to the severe penalties denounced against a violation of the strict neu- 
trality so strongly insisted on in that document, trusting to my interference 
in their behalf with the Government at Richmond under whose command 
they will be. In other States, British subjects imprisoned for following this 
advice, have already been discharged from custody and service by order of 
the War Department. 

"Your Excellency is pleased to inform me that with the change in the 
political relations of the country new obligations are imposed on the subjects 
of Her Majesty resident in the South. I do not see why this should be so 
seeing that they, by reason of their being aliens, had no voice whatever in 
the councils which brought about the present state of affairs. With regard 
to the protection afforded by the State to an alien, it appears to me to extend 
little beyond the safety of life, a guaranty which every civilized community 
for its own sake extends to every sojourner in its midst. You need not be 
told that the law of Georgia forbids an alien to hold certain kinds of prop- 
erty ; and I cannot see how a thing can be protected which is not suffered to 
exist. I have nothing to do with British subjects who hold such property in 
violation of law, but I do protest against the compulsory service in a civil 
war of those who have never contravened the law in this respect. 

"It is satisfactory to know that the option of leaving the country is al- 
lowed to British subjects and that no obstacle will be thrown iu the way of 
those who prefer to do so rather thau violate the Queen's imperative orders 
by meeting in warfare the United States forces. If compelled to take this 
course, however, I may be permitted to say that the comity usually observed 
between foreign States is not very scrupulously observed. 

" I have reason to know that many who have not hitherto been molested, 
are, in consequence of your Excellency's proclamation, preparing to leave, not 
a few among them being mechanics worth little or no property, of whose inesti- 
mable services, at this crisis, the Confederacy will be deprived. Am I to un- 
derstand that those already drafted may avail themselves of this alternative? 

" The dispatches which I have received from the British government rela- 
tive to compulsory service are strong. I am instructed to remonstrate in the 
strongest terms against all attempts to force British subjects to take up arms. 
Should these remonstrances fail, 'the governments in Europe interested in 
this question will unite in making such representations as will secure to aliens 
this desired exemption.' 



AND THE BRITISH C0:N^SUL. 405 

"It has hitherto been in my power to report to Her Majesty's government 
that her subjects have not been called upon to take up aims in this war. I 
regret that your Excellency's decision makes it impossible to do so hereafter ; 
the more so as the course pursued contrasts so stronL/Jy with the conduct of 
the United States government, who have conceded the claim of bona fide 
B]-itish subjects to exemption from any military service whatever, and also 
with that of the Governors of other Southern States who, upon representa- 
tion, ordered the discharge of British subjects forcibly detained in service. 
" 1 am, sir, your most obedient servant, 

" A. FuLLARTON, Acting Consul." 



" Marietta, August 26, 1863. 
"MR. A. FULLARTO]Sr, Acting Consul op Great Britain: 

" Dpar Sir: — In your letter of the 17th inst. now before me you conclude 
that I misunderstood you when you admitted tiie right of the State to chdm 
the services of British subjects resident within its limits to defend, to a 
limited extent, the places of their residence against local invasion by a for- 
eign power. You are pleased to say that such service might be rendered by 
them in the event of a war by a 'foreign power,' but not in a civil war like 
that which now rages on this continent. Then you still admit that, by tlie 
laws of nations. Her JMajesty's subjects resident in this State may be com- 
pelled to render the sei'vice now required; in other words, to defend the 
places of their residence against local invasion by a foreign power. And it 
follows, you being the judge, that the claim now made upon Her Majesty's 
subjects for service is in accordance with the Jaws of nations, if jhe Confed- 
erate States, of which Georgia is one, are at war with a foreign power. But 
in your attempt to escape the just conclusion which results from your ad- 
missions you virtually deny that the United States is a foreign power and 
claim that Georgia is still a component part of the Government of tlie United 
States. You have probably been influenced in your persistence in this error 
by the forbearance of the Government and people of the Confederate States 
in permitting Her Majesty's 'consuls #> remain among us in the exercise of 
the functions of a position to which they were originally accredited by the 
Government of the United States. As it is no part of my purpose to enter 
into an argument to convince you that the United States is a hostile power 
foreign to Georgia, I will dismiss this part of the controversy with the single 
remark, that if your pretensions be correct, your appeal for the protection of 
British subjects resident within this State should have been made to the 
Government at Washington and not to me. 

"You are pleased to inform me that you have felt compelled to advise 
those drafted to acquiesce in the duty until they are required to leave their 
immediate homes, or to meet the United States forces in actual conflict — in 
that event to throw down their arms and refuse to render a service, the per- 



406 COKEESPONDENCE OF GOV. BROWN 

forniance of which would run directly in the teeth of Her Majesty's pi'ocla- 
matiou, etc. It is worthy of remark tliat the language you employ is ' to 
leave their immediate homes, or to meet the United Stiites forces in actual 
conflict.' Your advice then to Biitish subjects, if I correctly understand it, 
is that when the United States forces attack the immediate locality of their 
homes or their own houses, they are not to defend them as required by the 
laws of nations against such local invasion, but they are to throw down their 
arms and refuse to fight for the protection of their domiciles. In reply to 
this, it is my duty to inform you that I can neither be bound by your pre- 
tensions that the United Stales is not a power foreign to Georgia, nor can I 
admit the right of Her Majesty by proclamation to change the laws of 
nadons, and insist upon maintaining lier subjects here and exempting them 
from the performance of the duties imposed upon them by the laws of 
nations. When the troops now drafted have been turned over to the govern- 
ment of the Confederate States to be held in readiness to repel local inva- 
sion, if tiiey should, upon the approach of an hostile force, follow your 
advice and throw down their arms, that government will have the power to 
pardon for such conduct, or to strike their names from its muster rolls if it 
chooses to do so ; but if an attempt should be made by the enemy upon the 
immediate locality of their homes, while I control and command the forces 
to which they are attached, and they should be guilty of conduct so un- 
natural and unmanly as to throw down their arms and refuse to defend 
their domiciles, they will be promptly dealt with as citizens of this State would 
be, should they be guilty of such dishonorable delinquency. 

" In another part of your letter j'ou take occasion to say that j'^ou do not 
see why the change in the political relations of this country has imposed new 
obligations upon the subjects of Her Majesty, as they had no voice in the 
councils which brought about the present state of affairs. With the same 
reason you might say that you cannot see why the laws of nations require 
British subjects in any case to defend their domiciles when located in a foreign 
country against the local invasion of another foreign power when they had 
no voice in the councils which formed the government in which they are per- 
mitted to reside. 1 insist that British subjects resident within its limits, 
though they had no voice in the formation of the new government, owe 
the same service to it when established which they owed before its formation 
to the government wiiose power originally extended over its territory and 
embraced their homes ; and that they are bound to conform their conduct to 
the new order of things or to seek homes and protection elsewhere. 

" But I am informed by your letter that, with regard to the protection 
afforded by the State to an alien, it appeal's to you to extend little beyond 
the safety of life. And as the laws of Georgia forbid an alien to iiold certain 
kinds of property you cannot see how a thing can be protected which is not 
suffered to exist, 

" Upon the first point I need only remind you that our courts are at all 



AND THE BEITISH CONSUL. 407 

times open to aliens belonging to friendly powers for the redress of their 
wrongs, and that the same protection is extended to their persons and all the 
property they legally possess which is enjoyed by citizens of this State. 

"I trust a re-examination of the laws of your own country would satisfy 
your mind upon the other point, as you will there find that the laws of Great 
Britain forbid an alien to hold ' certain kinds of property,' and it is the boast 
of that Government that it protects aliens who reside within its jurisdiction. 
The laws of Great Britain in reference to the right of aliens to hold certain 
kinds of property while domiciled in that kingdom ai'e certainly not more 
liberal to the citizens of Georgia than the laws of Georgia are to the subjects 
of Great Britain. 

"While I am unable to perceive the justice of your complaint in the par- 
ticulars last mentioned, it is gratifying to know that there is no law of 
nations or of this State which throws any obstructions in the way of the 
removal of any British subject from the State who is not satisfied with the 
privileges and protection which he enjoys, you remind me, however, that not a 
few of them are mechanics, of whose inestimable services at this crisis the Con- 
federacy will be deprived in case of their removals. These mechanics have 
no doubt remained in this State because they felt it their interest to remain. 
And in reference to them this State will very cheerfully adopt the rule which 
generally controls the British government. She will consult her own interest, 
and will exempt from military service for local defence, such mechanics who 
are aliens as choose to remain and will be more serviceable in that capacity. 

"I reply in the affirmative to your inquii'y whether aliens already drafted 
may avail themselves of the alternative of leaving the State in preference 
to rendering the service. While an alien will not be permitted to evade the 
service by leaving the State temporarily during the emergency, and then 
returning, his right to leave permanently when he chooses will not be ques- 
tioned. I do not insist that an alien shall remain here to serve the State, 
but I contend that while he chooses to remain under the protection of the 
State he is bound by the laws of nations and of this State to obey her call 
to defend his domicile against insurrection or local invasion. 

" This, I apprehend, is all that is intended to be claimed by your govern- 
ment in the instructions which you quote. While the British government 
has a right to demand that its subjects shall not be detained here against 
their will, and compelled to take up arms on either side, it certainly would 
not place itself before the world in the false position of insisting on the right 
of its subjects to remain in another State, contrary to the the wish of the gov- 
ernment of such State and to be exempt from the service which, by the 
common consent of nations, such State hag a right to demand. 

" You conclude your letter by informing me that my decision contrasts 
strongly with the conduct of the United States government, who have con- 
ceded the claim of bona fide British subjects to exemption from any military 
service whatever. 



408 COEEESPONDENCE OF GOV. BEOWIST 

" As the United States government is the invading party in this war, and 
can but seldom need the services of Britisli subjects to defend their domicilev=!, 
"which are scarcely ever subject to invasion, as it has no rij/ht under tlie laws 
of nations to compel them to bear arms in its invading armies, as it is not 
in a condition to be compelled to economize its supply of provi^^ions, and as 
it is reported that it has, by the use of money, drawn large numbers of recruits 
for its armies from the dominions of Her Majesty, in violation of the laws of 
her realm, it may well afford to affect a pretended liberality, which costs it 
neither sacrifice nor inconvenience. But you say tliat my decision also con- 
trasts strongly 'with that of the Governors of other Southern States, who, 
upon representation, ordered the discharge of British subjects forcibly 
detained in service.' la a former part of your letter when speaking of the 
advice given to British subjects to throw down their arms, in case they 
should be required to meet the United States forces in actual conflict, you 
use this sentence : ' In other States British subjects imprisoned for following 
this advice have already been discharged from custody and service by order 
of the War Department.' Excuse me for remarking that these two sen- 
tences contract so strongly with each other that I am unable to understand 
why it became necessary for the War Department to interfere and discharge 
British subjects imprisoned in other States for throwing down their arms 
and refusing to fight, if the Governors of those States had, upon representa- 
tion, in all cases ordered the discharge of British subjects forcibly detained in 
service. 

" Trusting that my position is fully understood by you, and that it may 
not be necessary to protract this discussion, I am, with high consideration 
and esteem, 

" Very respectfully, your ob't serv't, 

" Joseph E. Brown." 



" BRITISH CONSULATE, ) 
Savannah, Sept. 12, 1863. ) 

" TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR BROWN, Marietta : 

" Sir : — In your letter of the 26 ult., your Excellency informed me that 
aliens already drafted may avail themselves of the alternative of leaving 
the State in preference to rendering service. I have now the honor, there- 
fore, to request your Excellency to issue orders to your officers to grant J. D. 
and Fi M. Kiely, two drafted subjects, residents of Rome, Ga., leave to quit 
the State, and permission to remain unmolested in Rome 30 days to settle 
their affairs in that city. 

" I am, sir, your most obedient servant, 

" A. FuLLARTON, Acting Consul." 



AND THE BRITISH CONSUL. 409 

" Marietta, September 14, 1863, 
"MR. A. FULLARTGN", Acting Consul of Great Britain: 

^^ Dear Sir: — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your commu- 
nication of the 12th inst,, in which you request me to issue orders to the 
commanding officers to grant J. D. and F. M. Kiely, two drafted British sub- 
jects, residents of Rome, Ga., leave to quit the State and to remain unmo- 
lested in Rome tliirty days to settle their affaii's in that city. This permis- 
sion will be cheerfully granted upon the production to me of sufficient evidence 
that the persons named are British subjects. 

" By an ordinance of the convention of this State, representing her people 
and her sovereignty, passed on the 16th day of March, 1861, it is declared: 

"' That all white persons resident in this State at the time of the secession 
of the State from the United States with the bona fide intention of making it 
the place of their permanent abode, shall be considered as citizens of this 
State without reference to their place of birth ; provided, that any person not 
born in this State can exempt him or herself from the operation of this 
ordinance by a declaration in any court of record in the State, within three 
months from this date, that he or she does not wish to be considered a citizen 
of this State.' 

" The ordinance of secession referred to in the above quotation was passed 
on the 19th day of January, 1861. 

"If the Messrs. Kiely were resident in this State on the 19th day of Jan- 
uary, 1861, and did not file their declaration in a court of record in this State 
within three months from the 16th day of March, 1861, that they did not 
wish to become citizens of this State, they accepted the privileges and obli- 
gations of citizenship offered them by the State and ceased to be British sub- 
jects, and are consequently not entitled to the leave to quit tb.e State for 
which you ask under my letter of 26th ult. If, however, they became resi- 
dents of this State at any time since the 19th day of January, 1861, or, if 
they were then residents and filed their declaration as required by the ordi- 
nance, within three months after the 16th day of March, 1861, they will be 
allowed the thirty days to arrange their affairs as you request, and permitted 
to depart from the State at the expiration of that term. 

"With high consideration, I am, very respectfully, 
"Your obedient servant, 

"Joseph E. Brown." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Reconstruction of Georgia. 

The surrender of the Confederate armies, and conse- 
quently the forces of this State ; the arrest and imprison- 
ment of the Governor, and consequent cessation of all 
civil authority ; and the substitution of military govern- 
ment over the State for the time being, — ^left the people 
without government or legal protection, except the will 
of local military commanders and their subalterns. 

The President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, 
had been assassinated. The Vice-President, Andrew John- 
son ol* Tennessee — a southern Democrat, who had joined 
our enemies in the struggle — was by that sudden, ill-ad- 
vised, and unfortunate murder, invested with the execu- 
tive power of the Union, just as the last, expiring efforts 
of the remnant of Confederate powers were being made, 
and as the banners that had waved so often in triumph 
were being lowered, never to rise again. 

President Johnson had been selected from the South, 
while hostilities were progressing, and given the second 
office of honor in the Union, as a reward of his fidelity to 
the Union, and opposition to his own State and to the 
South, and his supposed power of disintegration and di- 
vision among our own people. When the executive 
power was thus suddenly devolved on him, he chose to 
follow the policy that gave him power, by conferring 
power and honor on men who had stood opposed to our 
cause. He selected and appointed as provisional governor 
of Georgia, Honorable James Johnson of Columbus, Geor- 



eeconstructio:n^ of Georgia. 411 

gia — a man of integrity and ability, thoroughly identified 
with the President and Congress in the plans of recon- 
struction, acting under instructions from President John- 
son, as proclaimed by him. 

He required a convention of the State, of delegates 
elected by the people. Which body was elected, and met 
under his proclamation at Milledgeville, on the 28th Octo- 
ber, 1865, composed of two hundred and eighty-five dele- 
gates, representing the integrity, virtue, intelligence, and 
patriotism of every part of the State. There were many 
men of prominence in the State, and some who had been 
prominent in the Confederate government, and a large 
number who had held responsible and honorable places in 
our armies. Many of them have been honored by high 
civil commissions since. 

Honorable Charles J. Jenkins, a justice of the State su- 
preme court for several years past, under the appoint- 
ment of Governor Brown, a delegate from Richmond 
county, was proposed as the president of the convention. 
He declined in favor of Ex-Governor Herschel V. Johnson, 
a delegate from Jefferson county, who was elected, and 
presided with great dignity, and after a session of fifteen 
days, on retiring, delivered to the convention an address 
abounding in wisdom, prudence, and patriotism, which was 
extensively published with good effect upon the people. 

Mr. Jenkins was made chairman of a committee of six- 
teen, to report business for the convention ; and on the 
succeeding day reported — and which was unanimously 
adopted : 

AN ORDINANCE 

" To repeal certain ordinances and resolutions therein mentioned, hereto- 
fore passed by the people of the State of Georgia in convention. 

" We, the People of the State of Georgia in Convention, at our seat of Gov- 
ernment, do declare and ordain. That an ordinance adopted by the same 



412 EECONSTRUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 

people, in convention, on the nineteenth day of January, A. D. eighteen hun- 
dred and sixty-one, entitled ' An ordinance to dissolve the union between the 
State of Georgia and other States united with her under a compact of govern- 
ment entitled "the constitution of the United States of America" ' ; also an or- 
dinance, adopted by the same on the sixteenth day of March in the year last 
aforesaid, entitled ' An ordinance to adopt and ratify the constitution of tiie 
Confederate States of America'; and also ail ordinances and resolutions of 
the same, adopted between the sixteenth day of January and the twenty- 
fourth day of March, in the year aforesaid, subversive of, or antagonistic to, 
the civil and military authority of the government of the United States of 
America, under the constitution thereof, be, and the same are hereby re- 
pealed." 

He also reported from day to day the constitution of 
the State, as its parts were framed and agreed on by the 
committee, made to conform to the new state of affairs, 
embodying in the main the old constitution, which was 
adopted, but which, as will appear, was superseded by 
another State constitution in 1868. 

This convention adopted many ordinances suited to 
the emergencies. 

There was one which gave the courts employment for 
several years : — 

AN ORDINANCE 

" To make valid private contracts entered into and executed during the 
war against the United States, and to authorize the courts of this State to ad- 
just the equities between parties to contracts made but not executed, and to 
authorize settlements of such contracts by persons acting in a fiduciary char- 
acter." 

Another, which swept away at a single stroke a large 
portion of the remnant of many private fortunes : 

AN ORDINANCE 

" To render null and void all debts of this State created for the purpose of 
carrying on the late war against the United States. 

"-Be it ordained by the people of Georgia, in convention assemhled, That 
all debts contracted or incurred by the State of Georgia, either as a separate 
State, or as a member of the late partnership or confederacy of States, styled 
the Confederate States of America, for the purpose of carrying on the late 



/ 



EECONSTRUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 413 

war of secession against the United States of America, or for the purpose of 
aiding, abetting, or promoting said war in any way, directly or indirectly, be, 
and the same are hereby declared null and void; and the Legislature is 
hereby prohibited forever from, in any way, acknowledging or paying said 
debts, or any part thereof, or from passing any law for that purpose, or to se- 
cure or provide for the said debts, or any part thereof, by any appropriation 
of money, property, stocks, funds, or assets of any kind to that object." 

The debt of the State when the war began was $2,667,- 
750. This had been increased $18,135,775, daring the 
existence of the war; which sum was rendered null and 
void by this ordinance, consisting in the currency and 
bonds of the State issued by her authority, and in which 
a large amount of anti-war securities had been invested. 

This course, however, seemed an absolute necessity on 
the part of the convention. Provisional Governor John- 
son had strongly urged it in his message ; and in order to 
put the terms of reconstruction beyond debate upon this 
point, he communicated the telegrams from Washington 
as follows: — 

" Washington, October 28. 
"TO HIS EXCELLENCY JAMES E. JOHNSON: 

"Your several telegrams have been received. The President of the United 
States cannot recognize the people of any State as having resumed the rela- 
tions of loyalty to the Union that admits, as legal obligations, contracts or 
debts created on them to promote the war of the rebellion. 

(Signed) " William H. Skward. 

"Received at Milledgeville, October 29, 1865, by telegraph from Washing- 
ton, 28th." 

"TO GOVERNOR JOHNSON: 

" Your dispatch has been received. The people of Georgia should not 
hesitate one single moment repudiating every single dollar of debt created 
for the purpose of aiding the rebellion against the government of the United 
States. It will not do to levy and collect taxes from a State and people that 
are loyal and in the Union, to pay a debt that was created to aid in taking 
them out, thereby subverting the Constitution of the United States. I do 
not believe the great mass of the people of the State of Georgia, when left 
uninfluenced, will ever submit to the payment of a debt which was the main 



414 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

cause of bringing on theii- past and present suffering, the result of the rebel- 
lion. They who vested their capital in creation of this debt must meet their 
fate, and take it as one of the inevitable results of the rebellion, though it 
may seem hard to them. It should at once be made known at home and 
abroad, that no debt contracted for the purpose of dissolving the union of 
the States, can or will be paid by taxes levied on the people for such pur- 
poses." 

(Signed) "Andrew Johnson, 

"President U. S." 

By which it appears, that whatever legal or moral ob- 
jections the representatives of the people had to the repu- 
diation of the State's war debt, in their subjugated condi- 
tion, they had no choice in the matter. 

The convention incorporated in the constitution of 
the State the following clause, which explains itself, upon 
the subject of 

The Abolition of Slavery. 

" 20. The Government of the United States having, as a war measure, 
proclaimed all slaves held or owned in this State, emancipated from slavery, 
and having carried that pi-oclamation into full practical effect, there shall 
henceforth be, within the State of Georgia, neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude, save as a punishment for crime, after legal conviction thereof; 
Provided, this acquiescence in the action of the Government of the United 
States is not intended to operate as a relinquishment, waiver, or estoppel 
of such claim for compensation of loss sustained by reason of the emancipa- 
tion of his slaves, as any citizen of Georgia may hereafter make upon the 
justice and magnanimity of that Government." 

At the time this constitution was framed, with the 
above clause in it, the idea of African slavery in this 
country was a thing of the past. The freedom of the 
black race had been proclaimed by the military author- 
ity on the surrender of the Confederate armies, and the 
occupation of the country by Federal officers, supported 
by Federal troops and guards ; and for a period of five 
or six months all the slaves of the State had been in a 



EECONSTEUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 415 

state of actual freedom. No slave-owner pretended to 
exercise or claim any authority over his former slaves, 
except such as employer had over employee. It is a 
noteworthy fact that in very many cases the freed 
negroes did not feel satisfied to remain, for wages, with 
their former masters ; but, as an act of freedom, they 
seemed to prefer to contract with and hire themselves to 
other persons than their former owners, and to transfer 
the lifelong allegiance, subservience, obedience, and con- 
fidence to and in their old masters, to Federal officers 
and agents ; which allegiance and confidence were neces- 
sarily of short duration. 

At an election under the provisions of this constitution 
Hon. Charles J. Jenkins was elected governor without 
opposition, and a Legislature chosen, which assembled on 
the 4th of December, at Milledgeville, under the auspices 
of Provisional Governor Johnson. This legislative body 
was composed, like the convention had been, of the good, 
and true men of the State, who were the representatives 
of the white race. 

The retiring provisional Governor in his message sub- 
mitted the 13th Constitutional Amendment formally pro- 
hibiting slavery then already abolished by military power, 
and later by the State Constitutional Convention elected 
by only white voters. The General Assembly ratified 
the Amendaient. 

The provisional Governor continued to exercise the 
duties of governor for several days, notwithstanding, 
under his authority and direction, the people had elected 
a governor, members of the Legislature, and representa- 
tives in Congress. 

On the i2th of December the provisional Governor 
made to the Legislature the following communication. 



416 RECOII^STEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

which is here recorded, as a relic of those extraordinary 

times : 

"EXECUTIVE OFFICE, I 
MiLLKDGEViLi.E, Ga., Uec. 12, 1865. I 

" Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives : 

" I received this moi-ning a telegram from His Excellency, the President 
of the United States, a copy of which is herewith transmitted. 

''J. Johnson, 
, " Governor." 

[copy telegram.] 

" WASHINGTON, D. C, ) 
December 11, 1865. ) 

"J. JOHNSON, Provisional Governor: 

" The Governor elect will be inaugurated, which will not interfere with you 
as Provisional Governor, You will receive instructions in a few days in 
regard to being relieved as Provisional Governor, 

" Why can't you be elected as Senator? 1 would issue no commissions for 
members of Congress, Leave that for the incoming Governor. 

" We are under many obligations to you for the noble, efficient and patriotic 
manner in which you have discharged the duties of Provisional Governor, 
and will be sustained by the Government. 

(Signed) "Andrew Johnson, 

" President U. S." 

On the 14th of December Mr. Jenkins was inaugu- 
rated, and entered on the duties of his office with the full 
/ confidence of the people of all the former political par- 
! ties, now united in a common purpose of political re- 
union and restoration, and the recuperation of the State 
and people from the waste and desolation of war. His 
inaugural address is characteristic of the great good man, 
who had opposed secession, and, in fidelity to his State 
and section, yielded, like many others, a hearty co-opsra- 
tion in the now lost cause of Southern independence. It 
contained a thorough and truthful presentation of the 
situation of this State, and of her relations to the Gov- 
ernment and her constitutional obligations, exerting 



RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 417 

everywhere a powerful influence upon the minds of the 
Southern people. 

This General Assembly elected Hon. Alexander H. 
Stephens, late vice-president of the Confederate States, 
and Hon. Herschel V. Johnson, late Confederate States 
senator, as United States senators for Georgia. But the 
senators, like the representatives elected by the people, 
failed to obtain seats in Congress. 

In consequence of ill-natured as well as unfounded 
criticisms and rumors of speculation, peculation, fraud, 
and mismanagement of the State's finances and the 
public property and assets during the war, the Constitu- 
tional Convention of the State, assembled under the 
authority of James Johnson, provisional governor of 
Georgia, on the 25th of October, 1865, recommended 
him to appoint a special committee to make a "thorough 
examination and investigation of the financial operations 
of the State, from 1st January, 1X61, to that time, and re- 
port the result of such investigation to the Legislature." 

That committee was composed of Hon. Thos. P. Saffold, 
Hon. Clias. S. Jordan, Jr., and Hon. 0. H. Lochrane, who 
made their report February 22, 1866, to Gov. Jenkins 
— who had been elected and installed — and to the Legis- 
lature, embodying all the evidence elicited in three 
months of patient and persistent effort to bring to light 
everything that had been pointed to or suggested as a 
foundation for the matters in hand. 

The committee published notice of their session in all 
the journals of the State, inviting all persons to come 
forward and give evidence who knew anything to support 
the charges or insinuations, and sent for and examined all 
the persons in reach who had been referred to for the 
verification of the suspicions. The committee say : — 

27 



418 EECONSTRUCTION OF GEOEGIl. 

" We have invited every one who knew anything 
that would throw light upon the investigation, to come 
and tell it ; written letters to individuals who were said 
to be in possession of facts ; sifted testimony, and exam- 
ined the books, accounts, and vouchers of public agents 
and officials, as well as their private affairs, — and feel 
assured an examination of evidence on file in the execu- 
tive office and the exhibits hereto attached will fully 
sustain the conclusions at which we have arrived." 

A tabular statement annexed accounts for every bale 
of cotton purchased, and shows what went with it. 

The committee say : — 

" Our conclusion is, after the most rigid scrutiny into 
the public and private affairs of these officers, from Gov- 
ernor Brown down, that no one of these rumors has been 
sustained by the slightest proof. Instead of fortunes 
having been made by them, we have found them gener- 
ally poorer than when they went into office. 

" In relation to the financial operations of the commis- 
sary-general. Col. Jared I. Whitaker, we report, after 
examining his statements as to his acts, official and pri- 
vate, we found his report to the Legislature heretofore 
made to be strictly accurate. He accounts for every 
dollar received by him ; arid by his final report attached, 
marked A and B, exhibits a fidelity and accuracy which 
met our commendation. The fullest investigation ren- 
ders it just to him, as he has been assailed, to say that 
we feel confident no man could have been selected who 
would have discharged the trusts of his office more ably 
and faithfully. 

" In the examination of books and vouchers of the 
quartermaster-general. Col. Ira R. Foster, we found that 
he had fully accounted for the moneys received by him ; 



RECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 419 

that his duties were performed with great zeal and in- 
dustry ; and his report up to date hereto attached, 
marked C, exhibits the accuracy with which his accounts 
with the State were kept." 

Public criticisms were freely indulged to the effect that 
the Governor had been a partner with E. Waitzfelder & Co. 
in blockade running, and in the Milledgeville Manufact- 
uring Company, and had used public funds in private 
speculations. Upon these and similar groundless charges 
the committee subjected him to a rigid examination. 
His answer as then recorded and published, and to which, 
after a period of fourteen years and through the mutations 
of parties and the heat of antagonism, no one has ever 
published or otherwise uttered a contradiction, states : — 

That he was never a public or private partner of the 
firm of E. Waitzfelder & Co. ; that he did not now own 
and never did at any time own a dollar of the stock of 
the Milledgeville Manufacturing Co. ; that he had used no 
funds belonging to the State in his private transactions, 
and that he knew of no such use o£ the State funds by 
any officer of the State ; that he had purchased the two 
plantations which he owned in southwest Georgia and 
paid for them in Confederate m.oney when the deprecia- 
tion was very great upon it ; that the Confederate notes 
he gave for them cost him but a fev\^ thousand dollars in 
gold assets ; that part of these assets he inherited in right 
of his wife and children from the estate of his father-in-law 
of which he was executor, and part he had in railroad 
bonds when the war began; that he invested in land be- 
cause he thought it safest ; that a large portion of what 
he now owned was in land and his city property in At- 
lanta. 

As much had been said about the large fortune he 



420 EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

had made during the war, he would state that he would 
now take in gold, first deducting his indebtedness, ten 
thousand dollars less for all he possessed when the 
war ended than his estate, including assets in his hands 
as executor, which belonged to him in right of his wife 
and to his children, was worth the first year of the war. 

In view of the official positions held by the Governor 
and his subordinates representing the integrity of the 
State in her public administration, these matters are re- 
garded of sufficient moment to be thus published, not 
only as a vindication of the State and these men who 
retired to pursue their avocations, but to give full oppor- 
tunity to all who may cherish malice against any of them 
to make such assaults against them while in life as they 
ever intend to make as to any such matters. 

The period of reconstruction tested the firmness as 
well as judgment of men in position to control public 
opinion and give direction to public action. Prior to the 
war, in the face of aggression, insult, injury, and threatened 
war and subjugation, Joseph E. Brown, Governor of this 
State, favored most of the means proposed to arrest aggres- 
sion, and in the last resort secession and its terrible con- 
sequences of war as an alternative to submission and the 
overthrow of the constitutional theory of republican 
government. Governor Jenkins, a man of cool judgment 
and large experience, then in private life, while he depre- 
cated the injuries and loathed the spirit of Northern ag- 
gressions, was steadily opposed to secession, and favored 
the preservation of the Union. 

Now, occupying the office of Governor by the unani- 
mous suffrage of the white people of a great but con- 
quered State, he was inflexibly opposed to the ratification 
by the Legislature of the 14th Constitutional Amendment, 



EECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 421 

making all persons born or naturalized in the United 
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, citizens of 
the United States and of the State in which they reside ; 
apportioning representatives among the States according 
to numbers ; imposing disabilities as to holding office on 
all who had held office and taken the oath to support the 
Constitution of the United States and afterwards en- 
gaged in the rebellion ; declaring the validity of the pub- 
lic debt of the United States, and prohibiting the United 
States or any State from assuming or paying any 
debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or re- 
bellion against the United States, or any claim for the 
loss or emancipation of any slave, declaring all such debts, 
obligations, and claims illegal and void ; and authorizing 
Congress to enforce the provisions of the amendment by 
appropriate legislation. 

Analyzing this amendment in his message in his usual 
able and elegant style, he concludes as follows : — 

" I ask you to consider, however, why it, is that you are called upon to 
vote upon its adoption, whilst your State had no voice in its preparation. 
The Constitution secures to the States the one right as distinctly and as 
positively as the other. Had your Kepresentatives, and those of other States 
similarly situated, been present, aiding in giving substance and form to it, 
possibly it might have come before you a less odious thing. The policy 
seems to have been, first to push it, without their participation, beyond the 
stage of amendment, and then say to them, accept our bantling or take the 
consequences. The omission of any material part of the process of amend- 
ment makes the amendment itself unconstitutional, null, and void. 

" Should the States especially to be affected by this amendment refuse 
their assent to it, it cannot be adopted without excluding them from the 
count a>nd placing its ratification upon the votes of three-fourths of the now 
dominant States. 

" It is said, however, that unless this concession be made, the now ex- 
cluded States will be kept out of the halls of Congress indefinitely. Were 
the amendment presented with such a menace distinctly expressed, a higher 
motive (if possible) than any hitherto suggested would prompt its rejection. 

*' At the termination of hostilities it was right and proper that the pre- 



422 EECONSTRUCTIOK OF GEORGIA. 

/ viously resisting States should, in the most unequivocal and formal manner, 
I abandon such resistance — sliould rescind all they had done in antagonism 
to, and do whatever was necessary and proper to place themselves in consti- 
tutional relation with, that Government. All this, we believe, Georgia has 
done. Beyond this, in actinj; upon any proposed change in the fundamental 
law, even in this critical juncture, my advice is that her legislators act with 
the same intelligent judgment and the same unflinching firmness that they 
would have exercised in the past, or would exercise in the future, when in 
full connection and unambiguous position. Any other rule of action may 
involve sacrifices of interest and of principle which magnanimity would not 
exact and self-respect could not make. 

" To submit to injurious changes in the Constitution, when forced upon a 
State, according to the forms prescribed for its amendment, would be one 
thing ; to participate in making them, under duress, against her sense of 
right and justice, would be a very different thing. The difference, in prin- 
ciple, is as broad as that which distinguishes martyrdom from suicide. Far 
better calmly await a returning sense of justice, and a consequent reflux of 
the tide now running strongly against us." 

This message was a reflex of the judgment and feeling 
of a very large majority at that time of the white people 
of this State. 

The subject underwent a critical examination by an 
able joint committee of the Senate and House on the 
state of the Republic, who made an exhaustive argu- 
ment in reporting against the amendment, which was 
rejected by an almost unanimous vote. 

Then the difficulties, complications, and delays of re- 
construction began to be seen and realized by the people, 
who felt and believed they had a right to a voice in the 
establishment of the terms and conditions of their resto- 
ration to the Union ; and that the United States, in the 
legislative, executive, and judicial departments, were 
bound by all constitutional checks and prohibitions ; and 
that the people of the conquered States were by the 
terms of the surrender reinvested with all the rights, 
privileges, and immunities to which, as citizens of the 
State and of the United States, they were entitled before 



RECONSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA. 423 

secession, war, and subjugation took place. This doctrine 
was in accordance with the public sense of justice and 
right, in harmony with public passion and pride in having 
surrendered to the Government, and given up slaves, 
repudiated their war debt, and unconditionally acknowl- 
edged allegiance to the Union. In their subjugated 
state, mortified by defeat, exasperated by the exercise of 
military power in lieu of civil government, they were 
ready to heed the advice and counsel of the statesmen 
and the leading news and political journals, which fixed 
limits and bounds to the exercise of power, and which 
sought to enforce the guaranties of civil organic law. 
The intelligent people of the conquered South viewed 
themselves from a different standpoint and measured 
their rights by a different standard — from the standpoint 
and standard of the leading minds of the Government 
whose dominion and power had been re-asserted over 
them. The people here regarded the restoration of Fed- 
eral power, and the submission and obedience and loyalty 
of the States lately at war with the Government, as the 
full and complete consummation of all the objects and 
aims of the war ; and considered that the Government 
should demand no more, and that the constitutional 
rights of the States and people of the South should be 
regarded and protected as a matter of right on their 
part, and of duty on the part of the Government. They 
were not prepared in judgment or sentiment to realize 
the wisdom or the policy, on the part of the United 
States, in changing the organic law of the Union so as 
to invest the liberated black race with full legal, political, 
and civil rights and immunities as a sequence of emanci- 
pation, and in the enactment of laws to enforce those 
alleg-ed rig-hts. And whosoever advised in accordance 



424 RECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

with the well-defined public opinion and sentiment had 
the ear and the approval of the people ; and, as a natural 
sequence, whosoever advised the contrary had the dis- 
favor and negative of the great majority of people, and 
if he were a Southern man he incurred more or less of 
public odium and denunciation. 

Most of the old leaders of parties in this State, whether 
they had originally favored secession or opposed it as a 
remedy for acknowledged wrongs, and the men of the 
State who had become prominent in the civil department, 
and those whom military career had made prominent and 
influential, were open in opposition to the proposed 
organic changes in the government, and to accepting 
voluntarily the new order of things so far as were neces- 
sarily the results of these changes. 

Some who had opposed secession, such as Governor 
Jenkins, Herschel V. Johnson, Mr. Benj. H. Hill, and Mr. 
Stephens, sympathized in this prevaihng sentiment and 
openly avowed their opposition, and cordially co-operated 
in this opposition with General Toombs, General Cobb, 
and most of the old and new leaders of the State. 

On the contrary, a few who had opposed secession 
favored accepting the terms of reunion and reconstruction 
offered by the General Government. And a few who had 
favored the policy, and advocated the principles and 
opinions that led to secession, advocated prompt separa- 
tion and the united effort to establish Southern independ- 
ence, and used all their powers and energies to maintain 
the military and civil authority of the Confederate Gov- 
ernment, now that the cause had finally and hopelessly 
failed, — the new Confederacy being effectually over- 
thrown, its forces disarmed and scattered, and the power 
and authority of the United States fully established over 



RECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 425 

and recognized and obeyed by the whole Southern people 
who had been at war with the Federal Government, and 
all fully recognizing themselves as a conquered people, — 
as a matter not of right and justice abstractly considered, 
or as a voluntary choice, but of wisdom and prudence, 
and as the speediest and safest method of securing peace 
to the people and protection to life, liberty, property, 
and to the civil and legal rights and amenities of the 
people in their diversified and numerous forms and rela- 
tions, favored the prompt and unconditional acceptance 
of all the positive and imperative terms dictated by the 
conquering power. The proposed amendments and their 
legal and logical sequences, which the conquered States! 
had no power to resist, were among those terms, and, for 
the reasons stated, their ratification by the State was 
openly urged upon the people. 

Conspicuous and prominent among this few was the 
displaced governor of Georgia, Joseph E. Brown, upon 
whose head the vials of wrath from his former foes and 
friends, with only a few exceptions, and from almost the 
whole political press of the South, were poured out with 
relentless fury. 

His star had been of the first magnitude in the political 
firmament, respected for its brilliancy and power even by 
the political foes who did not profess to walk by its light. 
But now, from thousands of lips, and the teeming columns 
of the conquered, resentful, and still rebellious press, the 
tidings and accusations were sent forth, were echoed and 
reverberated from hill to dale, and from mountain to sea- 
board, that " Joe Brown," to save his own neck from the 
hangman's halter for his alleged treason in resisting Fed- 
eral authority and seizing the arsenal and forts prior to 
secession and while Georgia acknowledged allegiance to 



\ 



426 EECONSTEUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 

the Union, and to save his own property from confiscation, 
had turned his back upon his own country, betrayed the 
people that had honored and raised him to influence and 
official power, whom he had aided in leading into seces- 
sion, war, and to its direful and disastrous consequences ; 
and now, to save himself and protect his own accumula- 
tions, he had joined our enemies and made common cause 
with them, in perfecting and completing our humiliation 
and dishonor. 

It is necessary to have lived in those times to realize 
the magic power and widespread influence of such pas- 
sionate and unfounded clamor, and their effect upon the 
popular mind and heart, and the accumulated weight of 
public odium that gathered around the name and charac- 
ter of Georgia's formerly honored and idolized chief. His 
name, so potent and magical up to this terrible test of his 
fidelity to his own accusing people, became a synonym of 
perfidy, treachery, and selfishness, and was everywhere 
cast out as evil ; in many circles the public cruelty ex- 
tended to social proscription. 

But, true to an inherited and cultivated firmness and 
to a higher and broader comprehension of the situation 
of the Southern States in their subjugated condition than 
the passions of the times allowed to most of our late lead- 
ers, he withstood it all with composure, and determined 
to abide the judgment of later times, while through the 
press, in private circles and addresses, he made public his 
convictions of what was wisest and safest for the people, 
and vainly urged his advice upon them. 

A critical examination lately made of the published let- 
ters and addresses of the then deposed and despised pop- 
ular leader furnishes the authority to state his precise 
position. He regarded the cherished Democratic and Jef- 



RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 427 

fersonian doctrine of State rights and State sovereignty, 
and the consequent asserted right of secession of States 
for causes to be judged of by their people, as completely ' 
overthrown; that the disputed right of coercion and sub- 
jugation claimed by the United States government over 
revolting and seceding States held by that government 
to be in rebellion was fully established and maintained by 
military power, then fully and effectually asserted over 
this State ; that the State was w^ithout power, and hope- 
less as to all means of enforcing a negative, or dictating 
terms of restoration to and reunion with the United States 
from which we had separated. 

Having made war for four years, when we had an or- 
ganized Confederate government, and governments in all 
the States composing the Confederacy, when they had the 
means to carry it on ; and having failed, the Confederate 
government being completely overthrown, its armies all 
disbanded, and the disarmed citizen soldiers that composed 
them all having returned to their homes ; and the general 
government having proclaimed that the State was without 
civil government, and substituted for the time being the 
authority of the military over the people, — he believed, 
and so advised, that it was the duty of the people to ac- 
cept, voluntarily, the terms which he avowed would be en- 
forced as conditions precedent to the restoration of civil 
State government, and re-admission as a State in the Fed- 
eral Union. 

He also protested as ardently, in the presence of the 
military and in the face of Republican domination, against 
all proposals to go beyond the actual requirements of the 
conquering power, as made known through the acts of 
Congress and official orders and proclamations. He ve- 
hemently opposed the State taking any voluntary step 



428 EECONSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA. 

calculated to degrade or humiliate the white population, 
not actually dictated and required by the government 
whose authority we had all sworn in the oaths of amnesty 
to obey. 

These are the opinions, and such were the counsel and 
advice of the ex-Governor, that brought him face to face 
with his own people and former constituents, and invoked 
their hostility and open denunciations upon him. 

In October, 1879, in consequence of assaults made on 
the floor of the Legislature upon the character and con- 
duct of Governor Brown in those days, — and which were 
also repeated through the press, — he was called out to 
vindicate himself. And as pertinent to the matters and 
subject now before us, the author quotes here his own 
language to the public. Referring to the days of 1868, 
he says : — 

" That was a period of unprecedented bitterness, madness, and vitupera- 
tion. It was just after the war, at a time when the people of the State felt 
they had not only lost all, but that the terms dictated by the conqueror were 
harsh and rigorous. Prominent politicians who were disqualified to hold 
office under the reconstruction legislation of Congress, and under the four- 
teenth amendment which we were required to adopt, were very bitter and 
denunciatory, and they fired the passions and worst feelings of the people 
up to a high point. 

" It was easy then to float with the current. My opinion was, however, 
that it was the time of all others, when patriots and good citizens should 
meet the issue calmly and coolly, dismiss passion, and be controlled entirely 
by the dictates of their judgment. Taking this view of the situation, and 
feeling that I owed the people of Georgia a debt of gratitude that I could 
never pay, for the honors and confidence they had bestowed upon me, I 
looked carefully into the situation, and whilst every prompting of my nature 
and of my passions was in the direction of the popular current, my judgment 
told me it was bad policy and would terminate disastrously to pursue that 
course. 

" I was fully convinced that further resistance to the will of the conqueror 
would be worse than folly. I knew the Northern mind was inflamed against 
us, and that the party which had favored the war. from the commencement 
and had come out of it triumphant was obliged for years to control popular 



KECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 429 

sentiment there. I was, therefore, satisfied the best thing we could do was 
to agree with the adversary quickly, to take the first terms they off'ered us, 
and close with them and get our representatives back into Congress at the 
earliest date possible, and our State again recognized as a member of the 
family of States of the Union. I was satisfied if we made no resistance to 
the right of the negroes to vote, and made no issue with them upon that 
subject, we could retain their confidence and carry a majority of them with 
us, in spite of all the influence of all the carpet-baggers that could come among 
them. But I was equally well satisfied, if we made war upon the acts of 
Congress which gave them the right to vote, it would be a war in which we 
would ultimately be vanquished ; and the very fact that we made the issue 
would put them under the control of the carpet-baggers who came among 
us, and who represented themselves to the colored people as being their 
friends sent here to see that these rights were secured. 

"I also predicted at the time, in my public speeches which are now of 
record, that the time would come in less than fifteen years, when the New 
England States would regret that they had given suffrage to the negro; and 
when the Southern people, on account of the power which the negro vote 
gave us in Congress, would resist any effort to take from tlie colored people 
the sufi'rage already given them. Under the liih Amendment, if the State 
were to permit none of the colored race to vote, she could count none of 
them in her representative population. The Southern States, therefore, have 
some thirty members of Congress and thirty votes in the electoral college 
which they would not have if they had denied to the colored race the right 
to vote. The Northern radicals saw this in the results of the late pi'esiden- 
tial election, and many of them have since cried out against unqualified 
negro suffrage. What Southern man would now yield that right, thereby 
losing the power which we have in Congress and in the electoral college, and 
which we would not have if the race were disfranchised? 

" But this is not all. At the time I took position for acquiescence in the 
reconstruction acts, no 15th Amendment had been put upon us, as part of 
the terms of re-admission into Congress ; nor was it done until a number of 
the States of the South had rejected the 14th Amendment. I predicted at 
the outset, if we did not accept the terms then offered to us, harder terms 
would be imposed, and we would he compelled to accept them. After we 
had rejected the 11th Amendment, the fifteenth, which guaranteed the right 
of the negro to vote, was proposed and made part of the terms ; and we were 
informed we would not be re-admitted till we complied with this additional 
requirement. And we had to comply before we were re-admitted. 

"What has been the result? Those gentlemen in the South who were 
then the leaders of popular sentiment, and who opposed the reconstruction 
measures to the bitter end, until they had been agreed to by the Southern 
States, have since become prominent in Federal politics ; and, notwithstand- 
ing their denunciations of the 14th and 15th amendments, and their predic- 



430 RECOlN-STRUCTIONr OF GEORGIA 

tions that they would never be enforced, they have since that time again and 
again sworn to support the Constitution with these amendments incorpo- 
rated in it. And the national Democratic convention which met at St. Louis 
incorporated a plank into its platform declaring its devotion to the Consti- 
tution with these amendments. 

" As my enemies, through the agency of their instrument, have thought 
proper to wake up the old issue, and again call in question the propriety and 
wisdom of my conduct in the course I took upon reconstruction, I think it 
not improper that I should call to mind these facts, and ask the people, who 
gave the wiser advice on that occasion. Was I right when I told the people 
we would be obliged to submit to these terms? What advantage did South 
Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida, whose peop-le refused to go to the polls, or 
have anything to do with the conventions that formed their constitution 
under tlie reconstruction acts, gain by the hands-off policy? They were 
advised by their leaders to touch not, taste not, handle not the unclean thing, 
to have nothing to do with it, but to give the matter up into the hands of 
the negroes, carpet-baggers, and scalawags. The people followed the advice 
of their leaders, and the governments of those States were put mto the hands 
of the clas-^es above mentioned. They formed the constitution to suit them- 
selves; and the world knows the result. 

"On the other hand, the white people of Georgia were divided upon this 
question. Some thirty or forty thousand of them who agreed with me, think- 
ing it better to have a hand in making the constitution they were to live 
under, went to the polls and elected some of our best and ablest men, who 
were not ineligible to represent them in the convention. The result was, we 
got a constitution which soon placed the State under the permanent control 
of the white race, where we have not had any inconvenience from the posi- 
tion the negroes have occupied in the jury box, — in a word, a constitution 
under which the intelligence and virtue of the State soon asserted their 
supremacy; and our leading position is not only recognized but envied by 
the Southern sisterhood of States. But for the course of the constituency I 
have just mentioned, and of the self-sacrificing heroic men who went into 
the convention, and who watched around it, with the curses of a large pro- 
portion of the white people against them, who had the nerve to breast the 
storm and do riglit, we would have been in as deplorable a condition as our 
three Southern sisters above mentioned. I leave it therefore for the honest, 
fair-minded men of this generation, and for impartial history in the future, 
to say whether the course T took and the advice I gav^ during that great 
struggle was the wisest and best that the circumstances permitted. 1 am 
•willing to stand or fall by the record; and my enemies wiio have provoked 
this assault are welcome to make the most of it. 

"Immediately after the reconstruction acts had passed, if the whole South 
had accepted the situation and supported General Grant for President in 
18G3, we would have been promptly re-admitted to Congress, oiu- State gov- 



EECONSTRUCTIOE" OF GEORGIA. 431 

ernraents would have been left in our own hands, political disabilities would 
have been removed, and we should have had no carpet-bag rule. This would 
have thrown together in the Republican party, as the result of the war, ele- 
ments not congenial on questions of banks, currency, tariffs, etc , and before 
this time a split would naturally have taken place on those issues. And as 
there would have been no bloody shirt waved, large numbers of Northern 
men, who now act with the Republican party, who were originally War 
Democrats, would naturally have drifted back to their old position, which 
has been prevented by the position of the South on the reconstruction issues. 
"Entertaining these views, I did not support the Seymour movement on 
the insane platform of 1868. But I then voted for General Grant as a 
measure of policy, as the Democratic party did for Greeley in 1872. The 
difficulty was, however, that the party did not adopt the proper line of policy 
by giving their support to a Republican till four years after the opportunity 
had passed. That which would have been wise and judicious in 1868, and 
would have secured our immediate return to our proper position iii Congress, 
was' of no benefit in 1872, because the times had changed and the opportu- 
nity was gone. The mischief had already been done. Had the whole South 
moved on that line in 1868, the result would have been that the Democracy, 
designated by their old name or by some other watchword, would before 
this time have been in complete control of the government." 

In the numerou,s published speeches and letters advo- 
cating the acceptance by Georgia of the reconstruction 
proposed and at last enforced by Congress, and the 
advice given the Republicans in the State, his address to 
the Constitutional Convention, and his addresses advo- 
cating the adoption of the Constitution after it had been 
framed and submitted to the people, and in advocating 
the election of General Grant for the presidency, — the 
spirit, the opinions, and advice indicated in the foregoing 
extract abound. And, as stated, the hated and denounced 
ex-Governor, while he advocated going the length de- 
manded by the^overnment, protested continually against 
going one step beyond it. 

Congress promptly proceeded with the work of recon- 
struction. The act of March 2, 1867, declared that no 
legal State governments, or adequate protection to life 



432 EECOXSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA. 

or property, existed in the States of Virginia, North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, 
Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; divided them into military 
districts ; authorized the President to assign a military 
commander to each district, and to detail a sufficient 
military force to protect all persons in their rights of 
person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, 
and violence, and to punish or cause to be punished all 
disturbers of the peace and criminals, giving the com- 
manders the discretion to allow the local tribunals to try 
offenders, or organize a military commission to try them. 

The law also provided that when the people of any of 
those States should form a constitution in conformity in 
all respects to the Constitution of the United States, 
framed by a convention of delegates elected by the m.'de 
citizens thereof twenty-one years of age, without distinc- 
tion of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, 
except those disfranchised for participation in the Rebel- 
lion, or for felony at common law, — the constitution of 
the State so formed to provide that the elective franchise 
should be enjoyed by all such persons as are authorized 
by the act to vote for delegates, and to be submitted 
to, examined, and approved by Congress, — and when a 
legislature elected under such constitution should ratify 
the 14th Amendment, and that Amendment become a 
part of the Constitution of the United States, then that 
State should be entitled to representation in Congress. 
The law declared all civil law provisional only in those 
States until they should comply with its requirements. 

Governor Jenkins was by military order of Major-Gen- 
eral John Pope removed from office, and Brig. -General 
Ruger of the United States army placed in power. Gen. 
Pope himself was afterward succeeded by Major-General 



RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 433 

Meade, and he by Major-Gcneral Terry, of the United 
States army, in the command of Georgia. 

The States referred to in the act failing to take steps to 
hold the convention and to comply with its terms, Con- 
gress proceeded with the work of reconstruction. A sup- 
plemental bill was passed providing for the election of 
delegates to conventions, for the purposes indicated, under 
the direction and authority of the military commanders in 
charge ; providing rigid rules under oath for registration, 
and excluding all as voters who by the provisions of the 
proposed 14th Amendment were proscribed from holding 
office. The freed blacks without exception, except felony 
at common law, were enfranchised, as were the white peo- 
ple who were voters under existing laws, except as stated. 

This proscription debarred a very large number, em- 
bracing most of the leading and prominent men of the 
State, from the right to register and vote in the election 
for or against convention, and for delegates to represent 
them, — they having held offices before the war, and 
taken the usual oath to support the Constitution of the 
United States, and afterward engaged in the Rebellion, 
as the war for Confederate independence was denomi- 
nated by law and in all official public orders. 

The colored people with great unanimity and enthu- 
siasm registered, and crowded to the voting places at the 
elections. The question as to the assembling of the con- 
vention was made to depend on the votes of those enti- 
tled when voting for delegates. In case a majority were 
indorsed for a convention, then the military commander 
was required to assemble the body ; but in case there 
was not a majority of those voting on that question 
indorsed for convention, then it was not to be held, and 
the military authority over the State was to continue. 

28 



434 EECONSTKUCTION OF GEOEGTA. 

The registration was conducted by officers appointed 
under the acts for the reconstruction — many of them 
negroes. There were 95,214 white voters and 03,457 
coh)red voters registered; total 188,671. 

At the election, 95,772 votes were cast for convention, 
3,905 against holding a convention, and 5,406 votes for 
delegates which were blank as to the question for holding 
the convention. The press of that day abounded with 
charges of frauds in the registration and injustice on the 
part of the officers in charge of it, and with charges of 
fraud in the count of votes. But this is the official result 
as announced, and upon which the convention was as- 
sembled by the military authority in command of the 
State. 

The senatorial districts of the State — forty-four in num- 
.ber — were adopted as election districts, and one hundred 
and sixty-nine delegates apportioned and chosen from 
them, by an election appointed and held for three days 
only at county seats, and by managers appointed by the 
military and registration authorities. Many of the man- 
agers were negroes ; and a large proportion of the dele- 
gates elected to the convention to frame the new consti- 
tution for the State and adopt the amendment to the 
Federal Constitution were negroes who had never before 
v.oted, and very many of them entirely illiterate. 

In this election, held in October, for and against hold- 
ing: a convention to assemble on the 9th of December, 
1867, thus organized and submitted to the registered 
voters of the State, the negroes voted with great una- 
nimity and enthusiasm ; and also for delegates favoring 
reconstruction to represent them. The white voters in 
many election districts stood aloof, and refused to partici- 
pate in the election for convention or for delegates. They 



KECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 435 

refused to take part in the act of calling a convention, 
and of appointing by ballot delegates for the purposes 
indicated. Conducive to this non-action of the white 
people there had been, between the time of the passage 
and pubHcation of the reconstruction acts of Congress 
requiring this convention, and the ratification of the 14th 
Amendment, a vast amount of able and some acrimonious 
discussion of the matters by the press and political 
leaders of the State. 

The people had begun to revive their hopes and to 
regain their energies, and ply their activity and industry. 
They accepted the action of the Legislature rejecting the 
14th Amendment with great unanimity, and seemed to 
regard the matter as settled. The act of Congress of 
March, 18G7, looking to this new reconstruction of the 
State, startled the hopeful people and aroused their re- 
sentment to the General Government, under the general 
sense of wrong, and of outrage perpetrated by the radical 
Congress. Such was the public opinion, and the gener- 
ally expressed sentiment of the press representing the 
people, at that time. 

The people thus summoned suddenly to reconstruct 
themselves and their own government, to conform to 
ideas and sentiments above all the most repulsive to 
them, were ready to follow the lead of any man Avho 
counselled them in accordance with their feelings and 
sentiments. In the absence o£ any leader they were 
despondent, dispirited, and depressed in view of the ter- 
rible and trying ordeal that was then required by their 
conquerors. 

At this period, most of the former old leaders who sur- 
vived the struggle were hopeless ; many of them, having 
lost their worldly estates, were depressed by poverty ; 



436 EECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

many of them feared the ultimate consequences of having 
been engaged in a war now held to be a rebellion by a 
government apparently exasperated and incensed against 
them. It was a sore and severe trial to many who had 
not quailed before the guns that finally had subdued our 
section. 

The press seemed to halt and hesitate, the leaders to 
whom the people looked were silent; but few except 
Governor Brown spoke, and he was advising them con- 
trary to every instinct, impulse, and passion of their nat- 
ure, and in opposition to their uninformed judgment under 
the new order of things. 

At this juncture Benjamin H. Hill, — who had been 
before the war a formidable and powerful foe to the 
Democracy and had opposed secession, and had held the 
office of senator in the Confederate Congress, had carried 
his opposition to Governor Brown through the war, had be- 
come a leading spirit and light in the civil government 
of the Confederacy, and the confidant and adviser of Pres- 
ident Davis, — with a boldness that challenged almost uni- 
versal applause, opened through the press his powerful 
criticisms on the government and party in power, the 
wrongs as alleged of the proposed reconstruction, and 
the order of things that would result from their adoption 
by the people, entitled " Notes on the Situation," which 
had so powerful an effect on the people then, and have 
been so often referred to since, as to have made them 
historic, and their object and purport are necessarily a 
part of our State history. In the 15th of these papers 
he sums them up as follows : — 

" The points which I sought by the * notes ' to establish 
were, among others, — 

"That the military bills were contrary to the Constitu- 



EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 437 

tion and destructive of all the principles and guaranties 
of free government in America. 

" 2. That they were contrary to every code of civilized 
nations, and in infamous bad faith to the terms of the fight 
and the conditions of surrender. 

" 3. That the reasons urged to justify these meas- 
ures — such as a desire to restore the Union, elevate the 
black race, secure guaranties of future peace, etc., etc., 
were utterly untrue, inconsistent, and insidious — were 
pretexts to cover the only real purpose, which was to 
perpetuate the power of the radical party. 

" 4. That the acceptance of the plan proposed by these 
bills could only result in a permanent subversion of the 
government in the degradation of the people in a long and 
bloody reign of anarchy, with social, civil and agrarian 
wars, resulting, after unparalleled horrors, in despotism for 
the whites of the United States, and in the extermination, 
exclusion, or political re-enslavement of the African race. 

" 5. The only remedy for these evils, both threatened and 
existing, was a speedy return by the people of all sections 
to the Constitution, and the vigorous enforcement of its 
remedies against all its violators. 

The elaborate and voluminous discussion of these views 
with the passionate style of a great writer, and on the 
stump, by him, one of the acknowledged orators of the 
age, to a people whose minds and hearts were in unison 
with his, had a most wonderful effect in uniting and 
solidifying public opinion in opposition to reconstruction 
on the terms proposed. 

These notes and Mr. Hill's speeches called out elaborate 
and able reviews by Governor Brown, written in his 
usual masterly style, setting forth and defending his own 
opinions and assailing those of Mr. Hill. 



438 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

Mr. Hill now had the popular ear and heart. The 
people in the main shared his sentiments, and hastily 
and enthusiastically accepted his conclusions, and en- 
tered into his passions ; he had almost the unanimous 
press to laud him and condemn his adversary in. the dis- 
cussion. The journals promptly published his articles 
and praised him extravagantly, and the spirit and hopes 
of the people were aroused and re-assured. A few only 
of them printed, and nearly all condemned without meas- 
ure, the reviews and criticisms of Governor Brown. But 
few of them were charitable enough to spare his motives. 

Other powerful influences were brought to bear upon 
the public mind at this period. A committee of distin- 
guished citizens of Atlanta called out the views of Ex-Gov- 
ernor Johnson, whose letter, generally published over the 
State, was a terribly scathing and withering analysis and 
denunciation of the congressional bills and plan of recon- 
struction ; other prominent and influentialleaders joined 
only in the opposition, and before the time for voting on 
the call of a convention and the election of delegates ar- 
rived the white people had become almost solid in 
opposition to the proposed reconstruction. 

The effect was to keep the white voters who had reg- 
istered in many districts from participating in the election, 
but not in the slightest degree to stay the progress of 
reconstruction. The delegates were elected, the conven- 
tion assembled and proceeded with the work of making 
a new constitution, such as was required by the acts of 
Congress, and submitting it to the voters who had 
been registered according to the requirements of the 
reconstruction laws and orders. 

The sentiment of hostility to the proceedings was al-. 
most universal in most parts of the State. But even after 



EECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 439 

the election of the delegates to the convention, it Wcas in 
an unorganized state. The people had not participated 
in the election, and had held themselves aloof from the 
proceeding, under the advice of the popular leaders who 
had their confidence, and of the exasperated press of the 
State. But they had no course of proceeding, no pro- 
gramme of future action prescribed. 

True to the passions, impulses, and prevailing opinions 
and judgment of those leaders, a voluntary convention 
of all who opposed the then proceedings — to recon- 
struct the State under the congressional bills — was called 
to meet in the city of Macon, to be composed of dele- 
gates representing the counties of the State. 

This convention, composed of two hundred and thirty- 
five delegates, representing seventy counties, assembled 
at Macon on the fifth of December, 1867. Hon. Benj. 
H. Hill was chosen president. His opening and closing 
addresses, and those of the speakers who took part in the 
discussions, were of an exciting character, characterized 
by ability and dignity, in harmony with the prevailing 
sentiment and feeling of the people. 

An able committee, composed of Geo. A. Mercer and 
C. B. Richardson of the First Congressional District, 
Philip Cook and T. M. Furlow of the Second, P. W. Al- 
exander and C. H. C. Willingham of the Third, Thomas 
Hardeman, Jr., and Daniel Hughes of the Fourth, David 
E. Butler and E. H. Pottle of the Fifth, J. Graham and 
W. W. McLester of the Sixth, Luther J. Glenn and J. A. 
Stewart of the Seventh, was appointed. Hon. J. J. 
Gresham of Bibb was made chairman of the committee. 

The action of the committee, which by adoption be- 
came the action of the convention, was more wise and 
conservative than the speeches and the leading news- 



440 KECONSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA. 

paper enunciations of that period had been, but was ac- 
cepted and approved generally by the constituency of the 
convention. 

They provided for a committee to publish an address 
to the people, composed of Ilerschel V. Johnson, chair- 
man, Absalom H. Chappell, Benjamin H. Hill, Warren 
Akin and Theodore L. Guerry, which was written by the 
chairman, in his powerful and masterly style, and was in 
harmony with the resolutions of this convention, all of 
which were extensively published. 

The preamble and resolutions, which express the con- 
servative opinions and sentiments of opposition to recon- 
struction then prevalent, are as follows : — 

" We, the delegates of the people of Georgia, in convention assembled, rec- 
ognizing our obligation to support the general government in all legal and 
proper measures, and claiming from that government the due performance 
of the reciprocal duty, to extend to us, in common with all the people of the 
whole country, the protection guarantied by the Constitution of our fore- 
fathers, do declare and affirm that manly protest against bad public policy 
is the duty as well as the right of every American citizen; and this without 
factitious opposition to government, or untimely interruption of public har- 
mony. The season for honest discussion of principles, and for lawful oppo- 
sition to existing abuses, and their growth, is ever present and pressing. 

"The Southern people are true to constitutional liberty, and ready to 
acquiesce in any policy looking to the honor and good of the whole country, 
and securing the rights of all classes of people. 

" We regard the efforts of the present ruling power to change the funda- 
mental institutions of the United States government, as false in principle, 
impolitic in action, injurious in result, injurious to the South, and detri- 
mental to the general government. Silence under wrong may be construed 
as endorsement. Be it therefore 

"Resolved, 1st, That we recognize the duty to sustain law and order, and 
support cheerfully all constitutional measures of the United States govern- 
ment, and maintain the rights of all classes under enlightened and liberal 
laws. 

'■'Resolved, 2d, That the people of Georgia accept in good faith the legiti- 
mate results of the late war, and renew their expressions of allegiance to the 
Union of the States, and reiterate their determination to maintain inviolate 
the Constitution framed by our fathers. 



EECONSTKUCTION OF GEORGIA. 441 

"Resolve^f, 3i], That we protest dispassionately, yet firmly, against what is 
known as the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, and against the vindictive 
and partisan administration of those acts as wrong in principle, oppressive 
in action, and ruinous to the States of the South, as well as hurtful to the 
true welfare of every portion of our common country, and leading directly, if 
not intentionally, to the permanent supremacy of the negro race, in all those 
States, where those laws are now being enforced. 

"Reaolved, ith, That we protest in like spirit and manner against the policy 
of the dominant party in Congress, which seeks to inflict upon the States of 
the South permanent bad government, as wrong, not only to all races in the 
South, and to the people of all parts of the Union, but a crime against 
civilization, which it is the duty of all right-minded men everywhere to 
discountenance and condemn. 

"i^e.s-o/yec/, 5th, That we enter on record, in the name and behalf of the 
people of this State, this, our solemn protest against the assembling of a 
convention, which, we affirm, with evidence before us, has been ordered 
under pretence of votes which were illegally authorized, forcibly procured, 
fraudulently received, and falsely counted, as we believe. And in view of 
the solemn responsibility of the issues involved, we do hereby declare that 
we will forever hold the work of framing a constitution by such authority, 
with intent to be forced by military power on the free people of this ancient 
Commonwealth, as a crime against our people, against the continuance of 
free government, against the peace of society, against the purity of the bal- 
lot-box, and against the dignity and character of representative institutions." 

Notwithstanding this strong and decided enunciation 
of alleged rights and wrongs, and the earnest protest of 
their opponents, the reconstruction party in convention 
proceeded with its work of framing a new organic law 
for the State. 

In the various constitutions that have been made, most 
of the provisions of the old constitution in force before 
the war have been retained ; some have been modified, 
and others expunged, and provisions inserted to suit the 
new order of things. This Constitution of 1868 made 
some elementary and radical changes of organic law. 

It enacted that, " The State of Georgia shall ever re- 
main a member of the American Union ; the people 
thereof are a part of the American nation. Every citizen 



442 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

thereof owes paramount Jillegiance to the Constitution and 
Government of the United States, and no htw or ordi- 
nance of this State, in contravention or' subversion 
thereof, shall ever have any bindin*^ force. 

" That the social status of the citizen shall never be the 
subject of leij^islation. 

" There shall be no imprisonment for debt. 

" Whipping as a punishment for crime is prohibited. 

" There shall be within the State of Georgia, neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude, save as a punishment 
for crime after leo;al conviction thereof. 

" All persons born or naturalized in the United States, 
and resident in this State, are hereby declared citizens of 
this State," etc. And the right of suffrage is extended to 
such as are male, and of suitable age and residence — and 
not disqualified — by special provisions. Debts for the 
sale or hire of slaves were abrogated. The Legislature 
was required to provide a general system of education to 
be free to all children of the State, the expense of \yhich 
to be provided by taxation or otherwise. A homestead 
of real estate and exemption of personal estate, to the value 
of $2,000 of the former and 1 1,000 of the latter at gold 
valuation, were provided, and the seat of the State gov- 
ernment peremptorily removed from Milledgeville to 
Atlanta. 

The convention provided by ordinances for an election 
by the persons already registered as voters, for the rati- 
fication of the constitution framed, and at the same 
time for the election of a governor, members of the Legis- 
lature, civil officers of the State, and representatives in 
Congress. 

The opposition, composed of the old Democrats and 
Whigs and conservative men, such as were assembled 



KECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 443 

and represented in the Macon convention of the preced- 
ing December, now changed their policy and mode of 
opposition 'from non-action and inactivity, to action and 
industrious preparation to defeat the proposed Constitu- 
tion, and in many counties to elect men opposed to it to 
represent them in the Legislature in the event of its be- 
ing declared adopted ; to elect a Democratic governor 
and, generally, the county officers over the State. i 

The Republican members of the convention chose, and 
put in nomination, a member of that body from the 
county of Richmond — Hufus B. Bullock. The Demo- 
crats in convention nominated Augustus Reese of Morgan i 
county, a judge of the superior court, who had been re- 
moved from office by the military commander of the ; 
State — a man of great purity and integrity of character. Q^ 

It transpired that he was subject to the disability 
from holding office imposed by the proposed Fourteenth 
Constitutional Amendment, and thereupon David Irwin of 
Cobb county, also a man of ability and integrity, command- 
ing public confidence, was nominated. It also transpired, 
that he, having held office and taken the constitutional oathj 
before the war, while not a soldier in the Confederate army,| 
had taken such part as disqualified him, and thereupon 
the executive committee of the party selected a man; 
who had never held office before the war, young in years, 
but eminently distinguished as a soldier and commander! 
in the Confederate army — Lieut.-General John B. Gordon. 
His nomination was popular. And while there was but; 
limited confidence among the public men of the party' 
that he could be installed if elected, the people supported 
him with enthusiasm, while voting for their county of- 
ficers and the members of the Legislature, and in Oj^j osi- 
tion to the proposed Constitution. 



444 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

The canvass was an exciting one, through the press, 
and by public speeches from leading men, and in private 
circles. The resentment against the method of holding 
and conducting the election, and against the appointees of 
the military to conduct it, was high and vehement. There 
were open and frequent charges and complaints of fraud, 
miscount, and illegal conduct on the part of the man- 
agers — and in the consolidation of the vote. But there 
was no power or authority to investigate and decide upon 
them. 

The Constitution was declared adopted, Mr. Bullock 
proclaimed elected, and thereupon General Meade, the 
officer in command of the military district, having suc- 
ceeded Major-General Pope, assembled the Legislature, 
and under military escort installed the members and 
governor-elect, on the 4th of July, 1868. 

The constitutional amendment was promptly ratified ; 
and thereupon Congress provided for the admission and 
representation of the State in Congress, and civil gov- 
ernment was restored and military authority suspended 
on the 21st July, 1868. 

At the time the Legislature was assembled and installed, 
and Gov. Bullock inaugurated by Maj.-Gen. Meade, com- 
manding the military district, the National Republican 
party had been in convention at Chicago, and nominated 
Gen. U. S. Grant as candidate for the presidency to suc- 
ceed Andrew Johnson. Mr. Johnson had been made 
Vice-President of the Union because he was a Southern 
Democrat of "great intellect and force of character, be- 
cause of his disloyalty to the State of Tennessee and to the 
Confederacy, and his inflexible loyalty to the United 
States. He had been made President just as the war 
of opposing armies was drawing to a close, by the 



RECOXSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 445 

assassination of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United 
States. He had been from an early period after his in- 
stallation as President at issue and on terms of variance 
and often of conflict in judgment with the party that had 
placed him in power, as to the proper course of the gov- 
ernment toward the Southern States and their recon- 
struction and re-admission into the Union, and as to his 
advised leniency towards the men regarded by the lead- 
ing men of the Republican party as rebels and criminals 
and deserving of penalties instead of clemency. This 
state of division between the conquering party having 
the majority of both houses of Congress, and having lost 
the executive by assassination, and the executive of the 
Union who had acceded to the presidency, and who 
evidently was not in sympathy with them as to the 
proper course towards us, or as to the future of national 
parties, had led to bad temper and mutual bad passions, 
and culminated in a most powerfully conducted and in- 
genious plan to impeach and remove the President, which 
on final trial had barely failed. The President was virt- 
ually impeached by the great and dominant Republican 
party of the Union, and as strongly and triumphantly 
vindicated by the deposed and defeated yet powerful 
Democratic party of the United States, North and South. 
We of the South, who had least to do with springino- 
or conducting the issues and disputes between President 
Johnson and the party that elected him, were, consequen- 
tially to his espousal of our cause and proffered protec- 
tion, made to an extent the subjects of an animosity and 
opposition, and consequent oppression that we otherwise 
might have escaped, from the dominant party, the ene- 
mies of the President. Our reconstruction was on hand 
at this period, when the party, under whose advice and 



446 RECONSTRUOTION OF GEORGIA. 

official nction the war had been made upon us, and 
nnder whose administration and under whose auspices, 
in the main, it had been prosecuted to a successful ter- 
mination against us, had become fully aroused, and were 
intent on pressing it to its logical and necessary final 
sequences, and on reaping to themselves, as a ruling party, 
the full fruits of their victory. 

They had called to bear their standard in the approach- 
ing presidential contest the man they recognized among 
their many leaders, who had become distinguished as the 
great successful hero, representing the military glory and 
the spirit of the national Union army as well as the ob- 
jects and aims of the national party. 

The Democratic party of the Union was then assem- 
bling in the city of New York to bring forward a com- 
petitor, and to set forth the principles, aims, and policy 
of the government when restored to them by the pop- 
ular vote. 

Horatio Seymour, ex-governor of New York, who had 
been identified with the national Democracy and opposed 
in his principles and sympathies to the Republicans, was 
nominated for the office of President ; and Francis P. 
Blair, of Missouri, who had been a Democrat in earlier 
life and joined the national Eepublicans before the war, 
and who had been actively engaged in the war of subju- 
gation and risen to the rank of Major-General in the 
Union army, but who had, after the close of the war, 
reunited, and become somewhat extreme in his public 
utterances, was nominated for Vice-President. 

In his letter previously published to Col. James A. 
Broadhead, he had openly assailed and denounced the 
whole scheme of reconstruction in strong and unmeasured 
terms. In this widely circulated letter he says : — 



EECONSTRUCTION OP GEORGIA. 447 

" The reconstruction policy of the Radicals will be complete before the 
next election ; the States so long excluded will have been admitted, negro 
suffrage established, and carpet-baggers installed in both branches of Con- 
gress. There is no possibility of changing the political character of the 
Senate, even if the Democrats should elect their President and a majority of 
the popular branch of Congress. We cannot, therefore, undo the Radical 
plan of reconstruction by Congressional action; the Senate will continue a 
bar to its repeal. Must we submit to it ? How can it be overthrown ? It 
can only be overthrown by the authority of the Executive, who is sworn to 
maintain the Constitution, and who will fail to do his duty if he allows the 
Constitution to perish, under a series of Congressional enactments which 
are in palpable violation of its fundamental principles. 

" If the President elected by the Democracy enforces or permits others to en- 
force these reconstruction acts, the Radicals, by the accession of twenty spuri- 
ous senators and fifty representatives, will control both branches of Congress, 
and his administration will be as powerless as the present one of Mr. John- 
son. There is but one way to restore the government and the Constitution, 
and that is for the President-elect to declare these acts null and void, compel 
the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State 
governments, allow the white people to organize their own governments and 
elect senators and representatives." 

And after amplifying concluded with this : — 

"I wish to stand before the convention upon this issue, but it is one which 
embraces everything else that is of value in its large and comprehensive re- 
sults. It is the one that includes all that is worth a contest, and without it, 
there is nothing that gives dignity, honor, or value to the struggle." 

The nomination of the great leader of the New York 
Democracy — who had opposed the Republican organiza- 
tion, its aims and purposes — for President, and the author 
of their recently published " Letter by a Major-General 
of the Union Armies," as Vice-President, on the Demo- 
cratic side, to compete for the executive government, 
against General U. S. Grant, the most popular general, 
and Mr. Schuyler Colfax, a leading Republican, made 
the issues that were well calculated to solidify the 
Democratic Southern States for the Democratic nomi- 
nees where there was not a majority of colored voters, 



448 EECONSTKUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

and to mass the people of the North, who had subjugated 
us, in the support of the Repubhcan candidates. 

The tendency of these nominations, in the open direc- 
tion thus indicated, was greatly increased by the espousal 
of the Democratic nominees and the platform of prin- 
ciples adopted by the National Convention, by most of 
the distinguished leaders of secession, and of the Confed- 
erate government and Southern armies. In this State, 
as soon as the nomination of Seymour and Blair was 
announced, General Howell Cobb, provisional president 
of the Confederacy, General Toombs, Benj. H. Hill, and 
others, entered the canvass as speakers, and were un- 
measured in denunciation of the national Eepublicans, 
the Congressional plan of reconstruction, the newly pro- 
posed amendment to the Federal Constitution. They 
exhausted their powers of invective upon the few leading 
men of Georgia who adhered to the reconstruction policy 
and supported General Grant. 

The national Democrats in their platform of principles, 
like the Republicans, avowed the purpose to maintain 
the public debt of the United States, their adhesion to 
the Federal Union, and demanded economy in public 
administration. The Democrats demanded the restoration 
of the conquered States to the Union, amnesty for polit- 
ical offences, and the regulation of the elective franchise 
in the States by their citizens ; arraigned the radical 
party for oppression to the Southern States, and for vio- 
lating the pledges of the Government as to the objects 
of the war — by which the people were led into it ; de- 
clared the Jeffersonian theory of government, and that 
the Democratic party of the South had gone into the war 
to maintain that theory of government; declared that 
the radical party, instead of restoring the Union, had, so 



EECONSTRUCTIOX OF GEORGIA. 449 

far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten States, 
in time of profound peace, to military despotism and 
negro supremacy. 

The national Kepublicans claimed the success of the 
war, and the reconstruction policy of Congress, " securing 
equal civil and political rights to all ; " and avowed it 
the " duty of the Government tg sustain these institu- 
tions, and to prevent the people of the Southern States 
from being remitted to a state of anarchy." 

The canvass made before the American people upon 
the issues thus indicated, and under the lead of the men 
mentioned, at that early period after hostilities, although 
conducted with great ability, zeal, and warmth by the 
leaders and press of both parties, necessarily and natu- 
rally resulted in the united action of the majority of the 
white voters of the South on Seymour and Blair, and of 
a majority of the people of the North on Grant and Col- 
fax, and in their election. 

The next political and unofficial movement of the peo- 
ple opposed to the reconstruction and Republican party in 
this State, was the assembling of the Democratic party in 
convention in 1870 — composed of leading surviving mem- 
bers of the old anti-war parties who had during the struggle 
made common cause, and of the same kind of material, 
actuated by like sentiments, feelings, passions, opinions 
and principles as composed the December convention of 
18G7 at Macon, and the Seymour supporters of 1868. 
Judge Linton Stephens, who died two years later, and after 
bringing to bear in every practical method on public 
opinion his masterly opposition to the reconstruction acts 
and the constitutional amendments, was a delegate from 
Hancock county, and as chairman of the business commit- 
tee was the author of the platform of principles adopted. 

29 



450 EECONSTEUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 

It has transpired since, that it was prepared on confer- 
ence with Alexander H. Stephens, before going to the 
convention. The declaratory resolutions are as follows: 

1. That the Democratic party of the State of Georgia 
stand upon the principles of the Democratic party of the 
Union, bringing into special prominence, as applicable to 
the present extraordinary condition of the country, the 
unchangeable doctrine, that this is a union of States, and 
of the indestructibility of States, and of their rights, and 
of their equality with each other, as an indispensable 
part of our political system. 

2. That in the approaching State election the Demo- 
cratic party cordially invite everybody to co-operate with 
them in a zealous determination to change, as far as the 
several elections to be held can do so, the present usurp- 
ing and corrupt administration of the State government, 
by placing in power men who are true to the principles 
of constitutional government and to a faithful and eco- 
nomical administration of public affairs. 

The Republican administration of the State under Gov- 
ernor Bullock, and the Legislature elected contempora- 
neously with him, a majority of whose members were in 
accord and sympathy with him, and the national Repub- 
lican party, of which he was a zealous and active member, 
had, by many causes combined, lost favor and support 
from the people who placed them in power, and increased 
and intensified the hatred and opposition of the Demo- 
cratic people of the State. The way was prepared for a 
change in administration. The resolution assailing the 
party in power was based on evidences of maladministra- 
tion so numerous as to be beyond question or contro- 
versy, by any fair and candid man, and was therefore in 
full accord with the public temper. The resolution de- 



RECONSTRUCTIOIT OF GEORGIA. 451 

daring federal relations ignored the subject of the new 
amendments upon which the national Democratic party 
had been defeated in 1868, and presented common ground 
on which all the people who were disposed to organize in 
opposition to Republican rule in this State and in the 
Union could stand and act together. 

The result was the triumph of the party and the elec- 
tion of a Democratic Legislature, a body decidedly hostile 
in principle and sentiment to Governor Bullock, whose 
term of office under the new constitution was four years, 
and who, if he should remain and continue to hold his 
office, would have to meet and confer with and be sub- , 
jected to the hostile investigations of an opposing Legis- 
lature. 

Pursuing the narrative of political parties beyond, in 
the order of time, the civil administration in the State, 
we reach the final solution of differences between leaders 
who had stood aloof and been in hostility to each other 
from the time the reconstruction began ; in the attitude 
and position of national parties ; in the Presidential elec- 
tion of 1872, when the Republican party renominated 
General Grant, and the Democratic party, despairing of 
success in electing a man of their own party, determined 
upon the nomination of a man of the Republican party, 
Horace Greeley of New York. He had been an open 
enemy to the national Democracy from early life, had 
been a Whig, and leading journalist of that party while 
it had an organization ; had been an anti-slavery advo- 
cate ; had early espoused the national Republican organi- 
zation in opposition to the Democracy ; and had boldly 
advocated the war of subjugation, and the sequences on 
the races in the South after victory. He had favored all 
the amendments of the Federal Constitution in addition 



^^ 



452 EECONSTEUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

to the reconstruction acts of Congress, and maintained 
tlie civil and political rights of the liberated negroes of 
the South. 

The Democratic party in the State elections north 
had found it necessary to acquiesce in all these measures, 
and stood in harmony with the Republicans as to the 
binding force of the Constitution as amended, and the 
laws for its enforcement. The Democratic party of 
the South, in its hopeless condition of political antago- 
nism to the organic law of the Union, which all public 
officers were required under oath of office to support, had 
drifted upon the same common ground with their North- 
ern allies, ignoring the past offensive action and doctrines 
of Mr. Greeley and his life-long opinions and theory of 
the constitutional government, and agreeing with him on 
the present issues and aims of the party ; regarding his 
liberal views toward the South and to all sections of the 
country, and appreciating his patriotism, sense of justice, 
and large philanthropy -, and in the hope of drawing off 
from the national Republican party a large and respect- 
able element known as Liberal Republicans, and organ- 
izing that element with the national Democratic party, 
and thus gaining ascendency, he was nominated for the 
office of President. 

Alexander H.Stephens, and Linton Stephens, who died 
at this juncture, with only a few other Democrats of the 
State, bitterly and openly opposed the action of the party, 
and the former continued the opposition and refused his 
support to Mr. Greeley. 

But the leaders and people generally had abated all 
their active opposition to reconstruction, and to the 
amendments as parts of the Federal Constitution and of 
binding force, had abandoned all idea of restricting 



EECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 453 

suffrage on account of race or color, or withholding from 
the freed negroes of the State any rights to which they 
were entitled under the Constitution and laws in force. 
They had an intensified opposition to the national Repub- 
lican party; had been exasperated by its course, under 
General Grant's administration, toward the South, and 
toward the party while in power in the State under Gov- 
ernor Bullock's administration. They ardently desired 
to change the national Government from the control of 
the Republican to that of the national Democratic party ; 
but they despaired of hope in that grand result by an 
attempt to elect a Democratic President. Such appeared 
to be the decisive judgment of most of the leading minds 
of the party north, and such was the action of State or- 
ganizations north, as to then render the attempt nugatory 
and hopeless. The next great aim indicated by the 
Northern Democrats was to meet the overtures of the 
more moderate wing of the Republicans, who sympathized 
with them in suppressing the abuses of the ruling party, — 
in the hands generally of extreme and severe men, — and 
in the re-establishment of law and order and peace, and 
protection to the people of the South, white and black, 
and to the stability of State laws and tribunals. As a 
choice, it was the object of intense desire to place that 
class of men in power in lieu of those of w^hose exactions, 
oppressions, and abuses they complained. 

The consequence was that this State in its party or- 
ganization glided smoothly into the nomination of Mr. 
Greeley, the ratification of the platform and policy of the 
national party that placed him in nomination, and, by her 
delegates accredited to the national convention of the 
party, actually participated in the nomination. 

There had been, however, a point of radical difference 



454 RECONSTEUCTIOK OF GEORGIA. 

of opinion and action among the native and original citi- 
zens of the State, who had been at variance with the 

I Democrats and acted with the Republicans. Some of 
them were radicalized in sentiment, feeling, and opinion, 
hated the Democratic party and its leaders, and became 
fully identified with the national party. They were few 

iin numbers, but acted in concert with the national party 

I in this State, composed mainly of negroes, and supported 

I General Grant for the second term. 

• A large portion of them regarded the organization for 
the support of the Government in the reconstruction of 
the State, her rehabiliment and restoration to the Union, 
as having accomplished the object that had separated 
them from their old party. They had lived to see the 
grounds taken by them in 1867 — and maintained against 
great opposition, and in the face of denunciation and 

i abuse, in 1868 — occupied openly by the national party 
to which they had belonged, and by the leaders in official 
position in the State, and by the men who shaped and 
controlled the action of the Democratic party in this 
State ; that the party now led by the men who had de- 
nounced them by resolutions of the most unequivocal 
character sustained their action in everything wherein 
they had differed. This wing of the reconstruction party 
was led by a few of the best men of the old party, prom- 
inent among them being ex-Governor Joseph E. Brown. 

The sequence was easy, logical, and natural. They 
all came together and cordially united in the support of 
Mr. Greeley, and secured his triumphant success in this 
State, though of course he was defeated in the Union. 
They have acted in harmony in State and National elec- 
tions since that time, and the bitterness that existed be- 
tween them has in great part passed away. 



RECONSTEUCTION OF GEOEGIA. 455 

Brief Kesume of Political Changes. 

From 1850 to 1872, a period of only twenty-two years, 
the changes of political parties were numerous, rapid, and 
in many respects, marvellous. At and prior to the first 
period named, the voters of the State, then composed only 
of white men, as well as the public virtue, patriotism and 
intelligence, were divided with great equality between the 
national Democratic and Whig parties. An election with 
a change of only a few hundred votes often had the effect 
to shift the majority and predominance from one party to 
the other in this State. The popularity of leaders or of 
particular measures, or the want of it, was sufficient to 
effect a change of political power in the government. 
This state of parties was a constant guard over the public 
administration, and to a very large extent a protection 
to the people against excesses and abuses of power and 
prerogatives. 

At this time, as we have seen, the division arose be- 
tween the leaders and extended to the people, as to the 
course this State should pursue on account of alleged and 
admitted wrongs of the Federal government in the anti- 
slavery policy of the compromise measure of that year 
enacted by Congress, known as the Omnibus Bill, ad- 
mitting California as a State, with her alleged fraudu- 
lently procured, anti-slavery constitution; the suppression 
of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, alleged to 
be a violation of the Federal constitution ; the purchase, 
at the price of $3,000,000, of territory of Texas, a slave 
State, and annexing it to New Mexico, a then being or- 
ganized territory ; the interdiction of slavery north of a 
certain line in that territory and Utah, and the refusal to 
provide for its establishment or protection south thereof; 



456 RECONSTRUCTION OF GEORGIA. 

and the law providing for the return of fugitive slaves 
from Northern States and Territories, to their owners. 

This difference suspended both organized parties, and 
produced in their stead two new parties, called the Union 
and Southern Rights parties, which for a short time were 
intensely opposed and bitter toward each other. The set- 
tlement of the controversy by the action of a State con- 
vention, and the acceptance thereof on the part of both, 
dissolved these new parties and remitted most of the men 
in them to their old alignments for the presidential con- 
test of 1852, from which time forward until 1860, the 
national Democratic party remained organized in the 
State. But the overthrow of Fillmore and such other na- 
tional men as were acceptable to the southern entire 
Whig party, and the nomination of General Scott, who 
was obnoxious to many of the most powerful leaders, as 
a candidate of the party for President, precipitated a divi- 
sion of the party, and caused the nomination of Webster 
and Jenkins. The elements, however, came together un- 
der the name of the Constitutional Union party in 1853, 
in the support of Mr. Jenkins for governor. And again, 
in 1855, with the loss of some members and leaders, and 
some Democratic accessions in the support of Garrett An- 
drews, the " Know Nothing " or American party candidate. 
Under the name of " opposition party," after the defeat 
of the American party, their organization, though in a 
minority, was kept up and active until after the presi- 
dential election of 1860, which resulted in favor of Mr. 
Lincoln. 

In that contest the Democratic party had divided, 
the larger wing supporting Breckenridge and Lane, the 
smaller wing supporting Douglas and Johnson. The 
opposition party, composed in the main of the old Whigs 



EECOI^STEUCTIOK OF GEORGIA. 457 

who had been Know Nothings or Americans, supported 
Bell and Everett, the national Whig nominees. The Re- 
publican or radical party, supporting Mr. Lincoln, was 
sectional in organization, and had no electoral ticket or 
acknowledged supporters in the State. His election 
caused an immediate suspension of all parties in the 
State, and new alignments growing out of differences of 
opinion as to the wisest and best course to be pursued. 

A majority of old Democrats with a large minority of 
the old opposition espoused the cause of secession. A 
majority of the opposition with a large minority of old 
Democrats — opposing separate State action, and advo- 
cating that whatsoever action should be taken should be 
by co-operation of Southern States — constituted a co- 
operation party, which was defeated in the election of 
delegates to a State convention ; -a majority of whom 
voted for immediate secession, and declared a secession 
and separation from the other States of the Union. There- 
upon both parties, while there was a partial division on 
State affairs and in the election of State officers during 
the war, cordially united in the revolutionary movement, 
and supported the Confederacy and the war. 

At the close of the war and up to the beginning of 
Congressional reconstruction under the amendments of 
the Constitution we had no political party, but all stood 
together upon the platform created for a common people, 
under the situation of total subjugation and defeat. 

We have seen that when the freed black race came 
upon the exercise of the elective franchise under the 
coercive measures we have described, the voters of that 
race massed themselves under the banner of their natural 
allies, the national Republican party, and that the over- 
whelming majority of the white voters were aligned 



458 EECONSTRUCTIOlSr OF GEORGIA. 

against them, and vindictively and spitefully against na- 
tive Georgians and Northern Republicans who advised 
and favored accepting the terms of reconstruction dictated 
to us ; and that in the brief period from 1868 to 1872 
the majority yielded all opposition to the terms and to 
the constitutional amendments, and cordially affiliated 
with the despised few at home and the great body of the 
national party in supporting and upholding them. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Administration of Governor Bullock. 

Recurrino^ to the narrative of the State Learislature un- 
der Governor Bullock, it will appear that the subject of 
prolongation excited much debate and controversy in 
that body, and by the press. In this discussion it was in- 
sisted that, in the face of the constitution, this General 
Assembly, arbitrarily and without the two thirds vote re- 
quired, prolonged its session in order to retain office and 
power ; on the other hand, that their sessions were legal, 
and demanded by the public interest and policy of the 
State. The matter is of vital interest, on account of the 
passage of most important acts in the session alleged to 
have been illegally prolonged, and that the acts were 
therefore void. The constitution prohibited that any ses- 
sion after the second under that constitution should 
extend beyond forty days, except by a two thirds vote of 
both branches. The session of 1868 was adjourned, and 
a session held in 1869, which was adjourned and a session 
held in 1870, which by only a majority vote was pro- 
longed, and important bills passed after the expiration of 
forty days — the lease of the Western & Atlantic rail- 
road bill, to which special reference will be made, the 
district court bill, the act requiring the taxes to have 
been paid in before certain old debts could be collected 
by suit, and other statutes. 

The matter, however, went before the supreme court, 



460 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

a majority of the judges deciding that not to be a session 
after the second under this constitution ; that the State 
government was provisional until the constitutional 
amendments had been legally adopted, as we shall here- 
after see. And upon these rulings the legality of prolon- 
gation was settled. 

This Legislature, at its first session, proceeded upon the 
apparent pressing necessities and demands of the people 
in their impoverished condition. Slaves had been eman- 
cipated, and lost as property to the former owners ; the 
labor system had been demoralized ; real estate had be- 
come redundant, and declined in market value ; live stock 
of all kinds reduced by the waste of war ; much property 
had been destroyed by fire ; a great deal had depreciated 
by age and decay, for want of repairs. The circulating 
medium, gold and silver, had been carried out during the 
war ; bank bills withdrawn from circulation, and many of 
them of reduced and doubtful value ; Confederate money 
and bonds that had taken the place of these had died 
with the government that issued them. A large propor- 
tion of the State securities and treasury notes in the hands 
of the people had been issued under laws enacted in aid 
of the rebellion, and had, under Federal coercion, been 
I'epudiated and made worthless to the holders. The peo- 
ple who owed debts contracted on the faith of property 
and securities now destroyed sympathized in the efforts 
of the government of the State to afford them relief. 
They regarded it as just that capital invested in promises 
and obligations to pay money should share the general 
loss, and be abated in proportion to the losses of other 
capital. Many creditors, recognizing the justice and hu- 
manity of this theory, did not hesitate to compromise 
and settle at large reductions debts due them, while 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 461 

many insisted on the stern legal right to collect all that 
was due them. 

Many debtors paid up entire, dollar for dollar. Many 
others were willing and ready to adjust and compromise, 
and pay as much as they were reasonably able to pay ; 
while others favored repudiation of debts, and favored all 
the means proposed for avoiding, postponing, and obstruct- 
ing the payment of old debts, and for reducing the 
amounts due and claimed on them. They favored the 
ordinance of 1865, the provisions of the stay laws, the 
constitution of 1868, and the bankrupt law of 1867. 

A voluminous act was passed for the relief of debtors 
and to authorize the adjustment of debts upon principles 
of equity, and an act to carry into execution the pro- 
vision of the State constitution setting apart a homestead 
of realty to the value of $2,000, and exemption of person- 
ality of $1,000, both on gold value. These acts gave rise 
to immense litigation in all the courts of the State. On 
writs of error to the United States on constitutional 
grounds, those laws which tended to prevent the collec- 
tion of pre-existing debts were set aside, as impairing con- 
tracts under the Constitution of the United States. Even 
debts due for slaves were held to be binding by that tri- 
bunal, notwithstanding slavery had been abolished and 
forever prohibited by the Federal Constitution. 

The spirit of enterprise and development then rife 
among the people found a ready response in this Legisla- 
ture, in the liberal acts incorporating railroad and other 
companies, and other public acts to which reference will 
be made. 

On the 29th July, 1868, this Legislature on joint ballot 
elected Honorable Joshua Hill and Dr. Homer V. M. Mil- 
ler United States senators. By resolutions respectively 



462 ADMINISTRATION OE GOV. BULLOCK. 

in the House and Senate, passed in September, the colored 
members of the Legislature were declared ineligible, and 
for that reason were expelled. And thereupon a new 
reconstruction besran. 

o 

These negro members had been holding seats and act- 
ing as legislators about two months, and voted on the pas- 
sage of laws as well as in the election of officers and of 
senators. They had been admitted to seats without ques- 
tion of eligibility, as had all the white members, without 
enquiry as to whether they were eligible to seats under 
the requirements of the 14th constitutional amend- 
ment. 

When Mr. Hill, one of the senators elect, applied for his 
seat at the December session of Congress, objection was 
made, upon the grounds of these alleged illegal proceed- 
ings ; and thereupon the whole matter underwent investi- 
gation. It transpired tlmt wlien negro members were 
expelled, the white members receiving a minority of votes 
were seated, that twenty-seven members disqualified by 
the 14th amendment held seats, and voted for senators. 

At the session of December, 1869, upon the recom- 
mendation of President Grant, Congress proceeded with 
the reconstruction of Georgia by the passage of a law, by 
large majorities in both houses, declaring the government 
of the State provisional, until the State should be ad- 
mitted to representation in Congress. Brevet Major-Gen- 
eral Alfred H. Terry was in command of Georgia as a 
military district — assigned by the President, January 4, 
1870. 

The Legislature, acting under the recommendation of 
Governor Bullock, adopted the 14th Amendment again 
which bad been proposed by the 39th Congress, and 
ratified by that body in July, 1868. Also the 15th 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 463 

Amendment, which in the meantime had been proposed 
by the 40th Congress. The General Assembly also pro- 
ceeded to restore the negro members who had been 
ejected, and to apply the test oath under the 14th Amend- 
ment to the senators and representatives, and to seat the 
defeated competitors of all who refused to qualify under 
the requirements of" that oath. Some members who had 
served through two sessions previously were ejected, and 
the persons who had received a minority of votes, called 
and qualified in their places, and were voted pay from 
the first of the first session. The ejected negro members 
were restored, receiving full pay for the whole time ; and 
the members who had been temporarily seated retired on 
pay for the time they had served. 

Under the constitution of 1868, the Governor's term of 
office was four years. Hence, in the popular elections of 
1 870, there were only the representatives and half the 
senators of a legislative body to elect. This election 
havino; resulted in the selection of Democrats with a de- 
cisive majority in both houses. Governor Bullock would 
have to hold the executive office contemporaneously 
with a Legislature fully in sympathy with the people and 
therefore hostile to him ; and there being various matters 
hinted at, and statements made in private, and some of 
them in the public press of the State, imputing criminal- 
ity on his part in the administration of his office, and a 
disposition to investigate and to prosecute, the dispir- 
ited governor resigned his office and left the State. 

At a later period, and after indictments had been pre- 
ferred, the ex-governor was brought back under requisi- 
tion of his successor. Governor Smith, placed on trial in 
the superior court at Atlanta, and fully and finally ac- 
quitted by the juries. 



464 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

Governor Bullock's departure from the State and vaca- 
tion of the executive office occurred just before the 
assembling of the Legislature-elect, which was known to 
contain in each house a majority of Democrats. Benjamin 
Conley of Augusta — a man of Northern birth but long 
residence there, a Republican, who had maintained the 
character of a good citizen and reliable man — was one of 
that half of the Senate elected for four years, and there- 
fore would hold over v/ith the governor. He was presi- 
dent of the Senate at the previous sessions, and therefore 
assumed the duties of governor as required by the con- 
stitution. 

Upon the organization of this Legislature, Hon. L. N. 
Trammell, of Dalton, was elected president; and Hon. 
James M. Smith, of Columbus, speaker of the House of 
Representatives.- Prompt action was taken by the Legis- 
lature to bring on an election to fill for the unexpired 
term the vacant executive office, while Mr. Conley, a 
member of the Senate, was exercisinor the functions of 
the office. 

At a party convention, Hon. James M. Smith was put 
in nomination, and at the election held soon thereafter 
he was elected without formidable opposition. Soon there- 
after he was duly inaugurated, and entered upon the 
duties of the office. Hon. Jos. B. Gumming, of Augusta, 
was elected speaker in his stead. 

During the summer of 1872 — six months after the in- 
stallation of Governor Smith — the Democratic party of 
the State was preparing by the appointment of delegates 
to the national convention, in anticipation of the nomi- 
nation of Mr. Greeley, a Republican; and the full ratifi- 
cation of reconstruction, and all the amendments to the 
Federal Constitution, and the unqualified pledge of the 



ADMINISTRATIOIN" OF GOV. BULLOCK. 465 

party to their support, — nil of which occurred soon after. 
The convention of the party, of the State, in full accord 
with the people, most cordially ratified the action of their 
national delegates, and renominated Governor Smith, 
without opposition, for the four years' terra next ensuing. 
He was elected by an immense majority over Hon. Daw- 
son A. Walker, the Republican candidate. The public 
odium that had attached to the Republican party during 
its rule in the State, followed by the departure of the 
chief, had completely dispirited the people and many of 
the leaders. Judge Walker, though himself an able man 
of good private character, was literally overwhelmed by 
the new and popular Democratic governor, who had the 
sympathies of the people in all parts of the State. 

The most important work upon which the legislators at 
this juncture entered, the one in which the people were 
most in sympathy and accord with them, was the investi- 
gation of the acts of malversation and fraud, which had 
been publicly alleged through the press of the State, dur- 
ing the preceding administration — by the governor, the 
legislature, and public officers and employees of the State. 

As it is the purpose to defer a full account of the times 
following those of Republican rule, to a later volume, I 
only present here the results of investigation in the im- 
portant matters that had previously transpired, and were 
part and parcel of action of predecessors. 

Fraudulent Bonds and Public Debts. 

This subject is directly connected with the faith, the 
credit, and prosperity of Georgia. The excitement pro- 
duced by its discussion and exposition was intense among 
our own people, and also among the holders of the State's 
obliiJrations abroad. 

o 

30 



466 ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

There were outstanding bonds and obligations to the 
amount of 1 18,1 33,000. A majority of these bonds and 
obligations had been denounced as bogus ; that they were 
fraudulently issued, and without authority of law. It 
was also alleged and claimed that they were issued for 
valuable consideration by the governor acting publicly 
for the State, and therefore the State was bound to re- 
deem them. And still more strongly was it urged, that 
very many of them had passed into the hands of inno- 
cent holders — persons who were totally disconnected with 
the alleged frauds, who at the time of paying value for 
them had no knowledge or notice thereof, and therefore 
acted in the most perfect good faith in taking them as 
the bonds of Georgia. 

The committee appointed for this important investiga- 
tion were, from the Senate, Hon. Thomas J. Simmons of 
Macon, now judge, by election of the last General Assem- 
bly, of the Macon circuit ; from the House, Hon John 
I. Hall, of Upson county, afterward appointed by Gov- 
ernor Smith judge of the Flint circuit ; and Hon. Garnett 
McMillan of Habersham county, afterwards elected to 
Congress, who died during the term. 

The committee devoted great labor and attention to 
the facts that they elicited, and to the laws under which 
the questioned bonds were issued, before making their 
report, which involved a very large proportion of the 
State's debts and liabilities. The public current of opin- 
ion and feeling ran strongly w^ith the committee and 
against the validity of all bonds not issued strictly accord- 
ing to law. Their report was adopted and became 
the law as to those debts. I condense from the exten- 
sive printed report, as follows : — 



ADMINISTKATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 467 

Alabama and Chattaxooga Railroad Bonds. 

In the matter of the Alabama and Chattanooga rail- 
road bonds, under act of the Legislature of March 20, 
1869, granting aid to this company, the governor en- 
dorsed their bonds to the amount of $194,000, that all 
the requirements of the act, and the Constitution were 
fully complied with, and the proceeding regular, except 
the omission to attach the great seal of the State to the 
bonds ; and that long acquiescence amounted to a ratifica- 
tion, a,nd that the State is bound by her endorsement of 
these bonds. 

Bainbridge, Cuthbert, and Columbus Railroad 

Bonds. 

The act of March 18, 1869, granting aid to this com- 
pany required the completion by the company of twenty 
miles of the road, to be in running order and free from 
incumbrance, as a precedent condition to the indorsement 
of the bonds to be issued for additional building and 
equipment; without the completion of any part of the 
road, Governor Bullock endorsed bonds to the amount of 
$240,000, to be binding when the signature of the Secre- 
tary of State, and the great seal of the State should be 
attached, which was never done. These bonds were 
negotiated to and held by persons who knew, when tak- 
ing them, of the incomplete condition of the work, and 
that the State would not be bound by the indorsement 
until the company should comply with the law. These 
bonds were declared void as to the State's indorsement. 

At the time of this action H. I. Kimball & Co., who 
had obtained the charter from the corporators, who were 
citizens residing at Bainbridge, Cuthbert and Columbus — 



468 ADMINISTRATION" OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

Mr. Kimball himself being president of the road — had 
failed, the work was entirely abandoned, and so it has con- 
tinued to this time. 

Carteesville and Van Wert Railroad Bonds. 

By act of March 12, 1869, providing for aid to this 
company, and without a compliance with its requirements, 
Governor Bullock endorsed the bonds to the amount of 
$275,000. This road also had passed from the corpo- 
rators, citizens of that section of the State, into the hands 
of H. I. Kimball & Co., and Mr. Kimball, who was presi- 
ident, negotiated them to Henry Clews of New York, 
the then holder, who was also treasurer of the company, 
and had knowledge of the failure to comply with the law 
prior to the endorsement of the bonds. 

By Act of the Legislature of October 5, 1870, the 
name of the company was changed to that of " Cherokee 
Railroad," instead of " Cartersville and Van Wert." And 
thereupon, and while there was not a compliance of the 
company with the requirements of the Act, the Governor 
indorsed $300,000 of the bonds of the Cherokee Railroad 
Company to take the place of those previously issued, 
which latter were to be returned and cancelled. These 
Mr. Kimball negotiated, without taking up or returning 
the others. 

Both sets of bonds for this company were declared 
void as to the State's indorsement thereon. 

Brunswick and Albany Railroad Bonds. 

There were two Acts granting aid to this company. 
One of March 18, 1869, providing for $15,000 a mile for 
the whole road from Brunswick, on the Atlantic coast, to 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 469 

the river Chattahoochee, with rigid provisions to secure 
the State against loss on account of her indorsement of 
the company's bonds. The other amendatory of the first, 
— 17th October, ISTO, when about 100 miles of the road 
was completed, — providing for the issuing of the State's 
own bonds to the amount of $8,000 a mile for the whole 
road, and authorizing and requiring the Governor to take 
up the company's second mortgage bonds amounting to 
$2,300,000, and to pay the company for the same in the 
bonds of the State of Georgia, at par, amounting to 
$1,880,000. 

Evidence is arrayed of the guilty knowledge and par- 
ticipation of the holders and interested parties abroad ; 
many gross irregularities are cited ; and the committee 
say:— 

" There was no investment by private parties, to give 
to the State the security required by the constitution as 
a condition precedent to the indorsement of its guaranty. 
In every case, the bonds to cover the sum of the author- 
ized guaranty were issued and indorsed before the com- 
pletion, in the manner required by law, of the section of 
the road, upon the completion of which only such guar- 
anty could be given, under the State aid acts." Hence 
the conclusion that the bonds were void as to the State's 
indorsement. Their total was $4,480,000. It is recited 
in the preamble to the first-named Act, that the State 
was indebted to the owners of the road ; and they had 
been damaged $3,400,000 by the tearing up and demoli- 
tion of the road by the authority of the State during the 
war. 

The committee say this is false, as shown by the testi- 
mony before them. That the control taken by Governor 
Brown in October, 1861, was at the instance of the stock- 



470 ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

holders and managers, through their agent and president, 
and under a contract with them. That the seizure of the 
iron and materials of the road was consented to and 
acquiesced in by the board of directors, and was not the 
act of the State or her authority, but of the Confederate 
Government; and they were used to facilitate the trans- 
portation of troops and supplies for the Confederate 
armies. And that the iron seized was all paid for. 

There was great opposition at the time to this bill, on 
account of the large sum of $15,000 a mile for the whole 
road, a part of which had been graded and in use before, 
and on the grounds set forth in this committee's report. 

The second bill, approved by Governor Bullock Octo- 
ber 17, 1870, as a fraud, seems to have no parallel in the 
history of this State, in immensity of design, in abuse of 
public trust, and in utter want of shame on the part of 
the interested parties and outside managers. It was sup- 
pressed in publishing the Acts of the Legislature. No 
mention is made of the subject of this bill in any of its 
phases in the Journal of either house of the Legislature. 
The committee in their report, written by Judge Sim- 
mons, say : — 

" This Act was prepared by W. L. Avery in New York, 
by him submitted to the board of directors in said city, 
and by said board accepted and approved before it was 
forwarded for introduction in the Georgia Legislature. 
Frost and Clews, the president and treasurer, w^ere cogni- 
zant of the nature of the bill, and were advised of every 
step in the course of its progress, of which any other 
person in interest in New York was informed." 

At the date of its passage, this New York company — 
having had issued by the company, and indorsed by the 
governor, in every instance before the completion of the 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 471 

work required as a condition precedent to the indorse- 
ment, and not having invested any private capital to 
secure the State, as the organic law required — had nego- 
tiated or hypothecated these bonds, and had obtained 
money thereon, and had constructed and placed in run- 
ning order about 100 miles of the road. By the terms 
of this Act, prepared by the attorney' of the company in 
New York, it was provided for an additional sum of 
$8,000 per mile for the whole distance from Brunswick 
to the Chattahoochee ; not by indorsing the company's 
bonds, but by issuing the State's gold bonds; and for 
taking up the company's second mortgage bonds to the 
amount of $2,350,000, and paying the company for the 
same in the bonds of the State of Georgia, at par, amount- 
ing to $1,880,000; and for placing the whole power 
and supervision of the affairs in the Governor alone, and 
cutting off the supervision of the State treasurer. The 
report of this committee has not been denied, or the evi- 
dence on which it was founded called in question to im- 
peach its verity. That report contains the following 
terse passage upon this stupendous A'ct : — ■ 

"There were, then, indorsed, under Act of March 18, 1869, 3,300 six per 
cent, gold bonds of flOOO each, making |3,300,000. There were also issued 
in aid of this road, to be exchanged for its second mortgage bonds, 1,880 
seven per cent. State gold bonds of $1000 each, making $1,880,000. By the 
terms of the first Act, approved March 18, 1869, granting aid to this com- 
pany, ' twenty consecutive miles ' must have been built ' in a substantial 
manner ' and be placed ' in good running and working order, which shall be 
certified to by an engineer appointed by his Excellency the Governor/ where- 
upon the ' company shall present to the treasurer of the State of Georgia the 
bonds of the company,' ' amounting, in the aggregate, to $15,000 per mile 
upon the road so completed, and from time to time thereafter, as often as 
said company shall have completed any additional consecutive ten miles,' ' to 
be certified as above,' ' the like indorsement may be had.' By the Act of 
17th October, 1870, the above Act was so amended as to require the presen- 
tation for indorsement of the company's bonds to the governor instead of 



472 ADMINISTKATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

the treasurer of the State. This same amending Act authorized and required 
the governor to take up the company's second mortgage bonds, amounting 
to $2,350,000, and to pay the company for the same in the bonds of the State 
of Georgia at par, amounting to $1,880,000 — that bonds of the Si ate, at the 
rate of $8,000 per mile, were to be issued to replace the second mortgage 
bonds of the company at the rate of $10,000 per mile ; and this wise provis- 
ion, for the credit of the State, was to be intrusted specially to the governor, 
who, to render assurance of the State's credit doubly sure, was further 
empowered, upon sixty days' failure of payment, at any time, of the semi- 
annual interest on these second mortgage bonds, or the like failure to deposit 
the sinking fund of two per centum provided for in the deed of trust, to take 
possession of the road with all its franchises and all the rolling stock and 
other property, real and personal, and sell the same. By reason of the un- 
timely ending of his Excellency's administration, this sale never transpired." 

Macon and Brunswick Eaileoad Bonds. 

The acts under which the bonds of this company were 
endorsed by Governor Jenkins to the amount of $450,- 
000, and by Governor Bullock, to the amount of $1,500,- 
000 was by the act of 1866. Under an amended act of 
1870, Governor Bullock also endorsed bonds to the 
amount of $600,000, making a grand total of $2,550,- 
000. 

The committee say $2,100,000 were actually paid in 
and invested in the road in good ftiith by private ptirties, 
prior to asking for or receiving the aid. This was equal 
to the amount of Governor Bullock's endorsement, but 
not to that of all the bonds endorsed. The committee 
referred the matter to the Legislature without a recom- 
mendation; and thereupon that body resolved that the 
State's guaranty placed on those bonds was binding upon 
the State. 

South Georgia and Florida Railroad Bonds. 

Under act of 26th September, 1868, granting aid to this 
company. Governor Bullock endorsed their bonds to the 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 473 

amount of $464,000. The statute and constitution hav- 
ing been strictly complied with, the endorsements were 
declared binding upon the State. 

Western and Atlantic Eailroad Mortgage Bonds. 

The sum of $614,000 of these bonds prepared and ex- 
ecuted by Governor Jenkins, left by him in the Bank of 
the Republic when he was expelled from his office, came 
into the hands of Governor Bullock, who endorsed and 
used them legally and properly in taking up past due 
bonds of the State. These bonds were declared valid and 
binding upon the State. 

Currency Bonds. 

Under act of 27th August, 1870, Governor Bullock is- 
sued $2,000,000 of currency bonds, which were hypothe- 
cated Henry Clews & Co., the Fourth National Bank of 
New York, and Russell Sage of New York ; and loans 
were made to the State. These bonds were intended as 
a temporary issue, to be taken up and cancelled and re- 
turned to the State treasurer, so soon as the bonds author- 
ized by act of September 15, 1870, steel-engraved quar- 
terly gold bonds, could be prepared ; under which, early 
in 1871, Governor Bullock prepared, signed, and put in 
circulation $3,000,000, and directed that the currency 
be returned as cancelled. Governor Bullock intrusted 
Mr. H. J. Kimball with the sale of the gold bonds, with 
instructions to take up the currency bonds held by the 
Fourth National bank, and by Clews. The bank surren- 
dered the currency bonds to Kimball, who, instead of re- 
turning them as instructed, kept $170,000 of them, and 
received money on his own account. Clews receiving the 
gold bonds refused to surrender the currency bonds, al- 



474 ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

though notified that they were retired by the issue of the 
gold bonds. Russell Sage loaned the State $275,000 
through John Rice, and received $530,000 of those cur- 
rency bonds as collaterals. Governor Bullock afterward 
forwarded him $500,000 of the gold bonds to take their 
place, which he received; but he refused to surrender 
the others, thus holding $1,030,000, to secure a debt of 
$275,000. 

Thereupon, it was determined, that the $2,000,000 of 
currency. bonds were all retired by the issue of the quar- 
terly gold bonds, and were of no binding force against 
the State of Georgia. 

Quarterly Gold Bonds. 

Under the act of September 15, 1870, which did not 
limit the amount authorized. Governor Bullock issued, as 
we have seen, $3,000,000. This authority to issue gold 
bonds was to pay the bonds, coupons, and interest of the 
State, due or to become due, and for such other general 
or special pui poses as the General Assembly might desig- 
nate ; $300,000 of these bonds which had been hypothe- 
cated had been returned ; $102,000 not hypothecated, but 
in the hands of Henry Clews as financial agent to sell, 
the committee declare not binding on the State. The 
balance were $2,598,000, some of which were hypothe- 
cated, and some had been sold. Of these the committee 
say $350,000 were given for the opera house, for the 
Capitol, and the purchase of the Executive mansion. 
Mr. Clews sold $1,650,000, and the remainder was manip- 
ulated by Kimball ; the amount realized by him not 
ascertained. Clews realized about $1,432,250; of this 
sum. $375,000 were used in taking up past due bonds and 
interest, and purchasing gold on State account ; about 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 475 

),000 in paying coupons of Western & Atlantic rail- 
road mortg-acre bonds and interest on endorsed bonds of 
Alabama and Chattanooga railroad ; $609,192 were paid 
by Clews on the drafts of Bullock and Foster Blodgett, 
the larger portion of which was represented to be on ac- 
count of the Western & Atlantic railroad; $198,700 
were paid to the Fourth National bank on account of the 
State ; and the remaining $254,000 were paid for adver- 
tising, expressage, notarial fees, telegrams, interest on ad- 
vances, and other expenses attending the sale. The com- 
mittee arrived at the conclusion that gold bonds issued 
by Governor Bullock for the purchase of property, or sold 
in the markets by his agents, should be recognized as 
good and binding; that those hypothecated, and on which 
money was borrowed by the State, be returned to the 
treasurer; the amount borrowed, with interest and rea- 
sonable expenses of returning the bonds, be paid by the 
issuance of new currency bonds having the same time to 
run as the quarterly gold bonds, or in cash, at the option 
of the holders. 

The action of the Legislature was in accordance with 
the conclusions of their committee. 

Acting Governor Conley, in his retiring message to the 
General Assembly in January, 1872, presents the follow- 
ing statement of the action of Governor Bullock upon 
the subject of the bonds, which we think proper to pub- 
lish in connection with the facts set forth, and the action 
of the committee and the Legislature thereon : — 

"Under the authority of acts of the Legislature, passed in 1868, there were 
issued by Governor Bullock, to pay off the members of the General Assem- 
bly and other expenses of that body, and to meet the interest due and un- 
paid, and the interest maturing on the bonds of this State up to February 1, 
1869, $600,000 of seven per cent, currency bonds. These bonds were never 
intended for sale, but were only to be used as security for temporary loans 



476 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

made to the State until such loans could be met by payments from the 
treasury. The amount borrowed upon them has long since been refunded, 
as the books of the treasurer will probably show, and these currency bonds, 
with the exception of two hundred and sixty-eight, which were deposited in 
the treasury to secure the school fund tliat has been used by the IState for 
general purposes, have all beea cancelled and returned to the treasurer's 
office. 

" Under authority of acts of the General Assembly, approved August 27, 
1870, September 15, 1870, and October 5, 1870, two millions of dollars 
(|2,000,000j of seven per cent, currency bonds were issued by Governor Bul- 
lock for the purpose of being used as collateral security upon which to pro- 
cure temporary loans for immediate use, which loans were to be applied to 
the objects'mentioned in those acts. 

" These bonds were never intended, and were never offered for sale. They 
were issued for the simple reason that it required some time for the prepara- 
tion of the steel-engraved bonds. The distinct understanding with the 
parties to whom they were delivered was, that they were not to be placed 
upon the market at all, but were to be held simply as temporary collateral 
for any advances they might make to the State until the gold bonds provided 
for in the act of September 15, 1870, could be prepared and substituted for 
them, and that as soon as such gold bonds were substituted, the currency 
bonds were to be cancelled and returned to this department. 

" The gold bonds were subsequently prepared and were intended to be 
substituted for these currencies, and to be used for the purposes provided for 
by the act under which they were issued. 

In pursuance of the understanding above mentioned, there have 
been cancelled and returned to this office of these currency 

bonds $500,000 

" The balance of these bonds are now held by the following parties : 

Messrs. Clews & Co., of New York, have 800,000 

Messrs. J. Boorman Johnston & Co., of New York, have . . 120,000 

Russell Sage, of New York, has 530,000 

The Fulton Bank of Brooklyn has 50,000 

$2,000,000 

"None of these currency bonds can be considered as being in any way a 
claim against the State, because they were cancelled by the substitution of 
the gold bonds in their stead. I have written to the various parties who now 
hold them informing them of this fact, but they decline to return them on 
the ground that it is not customary to surrender any securities until the ac- 
count is closed. 

" Under the authority of the act of September 15, 1870, there were prepared 
and issued three million dollars ($3,000,000) of gold bonds of the State, hav- 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 477 

ing twenty years to run, -with interest at seven per cent., payable quarterly, 
in gold coin. These bonds were issued for the purpose, as stated in the act 
of meeting and redeeming all bonds of this State, and the coupons thereon 
now due, or when the same shall have fallen due, and for such other pur- 
poses as the General Assembly may direct, and to take the place of the cur- 
rency bonds that had been issued for temporary purposes. 

Of these gold bonds there were placed in the hands of Messrs. 

Henry .Clews & Co., of New York, for sale and to secure 

advances made by them upon the currencies and otherwise, f 1,750,000 
There were placed in the hands of Russell Sage, of New York, 

for the same purpose, 500,000 

There were deposited in the Fourth National Bank of New 

York, 300,000 

There were placed in the hands of A. S. Whiton, of New York, . 100,000 
There were given to Mr. H. I. Kimball, for the purchase of the 

capitol building, 250.000 

There were given to Mr. John H. James, for the purchase of the 

Executive mansion, 100,000 

$3,0U0,0U0 

" These figures account for the whole issue of these gold bonds. The state- 
ment of the account of Messrs. Henry Clews & Co. with the State is in the 
treasurer's office, and is open to inspection. The detailed statements of the 
other parties have not been forwarded to this office, but I have written to ob- 
tain them, and they will probably be transmitted at an early day. 

" According to the treasurer's report for the year ending December 31, 
1870, there fell due, during the years 1870 and 1871, bonds of the State 
amounting to $215,000. The larger portion of this amount, together with a 
part of the interest upon other bonds of the State, as it fell due. has been met 
from the proceeds of these gold bonds, as also the £15,000 sterling of bonds 
which fell due in 1868, and the £3,000 interest due thereon. Large advances 
have also been made upon these bonds to pay the claims passed upon by the 
Board of Commissioners appointed to audit claims against the Western & 
Atlantic railroad, and to pay the liquidated claims provided for in the act. 
Notes of the Western & Atlantic railroad for large amounts, given for the 
purchase of cars, engines, etc., and falling due in 1870 and 1871, have also 
been paid from the proceeds of these gold bonds. An investigating com- 
mittee of your lionorable body can readily ascertain what has become of 
every dollar that has been realized from the sale of these gold bonds. These 
gold bonds have all been prepared in strict conformity with the law authoriz- 
ing their issue, have been duly registered by the Comptroller-General in a 
book kept for that purpose, and by him reported to the treasurer in precisely 
the manner the act prescribes. 



478 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

" Under the authority of an act of the General Assembly, approved Octo- 
ber 17, 1870, temporary lithographed gold bonds, to the amount of $880,000, 
were prepared and issued, and placed in the hands of the officers of the 
Brunswick & Albany Railroad Company, to be used for their temporary re- 
quirements, until the regular steel-engraved gold bonds of tlie State, author- 
ized by that act to be issued to the company, could be prepared. These 
regular steel-engraved gold bonds were soon after issued, and the $880,000 
lithographed gold bonds have all been cancelled, and are now in the 
treasurer's office. 

" The act of October 17, 1870, above referred to, authorizes and directs the 
Governor of the State to receive from the President, or other officer autlior- 
ized by the board of directors of the Brunswick & Albany Railroad Com- 
pany, the whole issue of the second mortgage bonds of said company, 
amounting to $10,000 per mile upon said company's road, and amounting in 
the aggregate to the sum of $2,350,000, and to pay said company for the 
same in the bonds of the State of Georgia at par, bearing seven per cent, in- 
terest, payable semi-annually on the first day of June and December in each 
year, at the rate of $8,000 per mile, and in the aggregate amounting to 
$1,880,000, the principal sum of said bonds to be payable in twenty- five 
years from the first day of December, A, D., 1869, and his Excellency the 
Governor is authorized and directed to cause said bonds to be executed in 
due and legal form, and paid over to said company as aforesaid. 

" Under the provision above recited, there have been i^^sued and delivered 
to the officers of the Brunswick & Albany Railroad Company, one thousand 
eight hundred steel-engraved bonds of the State for $1,000 each, having 
twenty-five years to run, with interest at seven per cent., payable semi-an- 
nually, principal and interest payable in gold. These bonds have been duly 
registered in the office of the Comptroller-General and reported to the 
treasurer. All of the second mortagage bonds of the Brunswick & Albany 
Railroad Company, for which these gold bonds were given in exchange, have 
been forwarded to the treasurer's office as required by law, except one hun- 
dred and sixty-two, which the company still hold, and which they will con- 
tinue to hold, I suppose, until they have completed their road and received 
the remaining eiglity State bonds to which they will then be entitled. These 
eighty bonds have been partially executed and are now in the Executive 
office. 

" The foregoing statement covers every description and character of bonds 
that have been issued during the administration of my predecessor, and from 
it your honorable body will see that the only kind of bonds issued by him 
that are now outstanding, and that are a claim against the State, are the 
$3,000,000 of gold bonds issued under authority of the act of September 15, 
1870, and the $1,800,000 of gold bonds issued to the Brunswick & Albany 
Railroad Company in accordance with the act of October 17, 1870. The 
actual liability of the State, therefore, incurred during his administration, 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 479 

is represented by the sum of $4,800,000. It should not be forgotten that a 
large portion of this sum has been devoted to the redemption of bonds fall- 
ing due in 1870 and 1871, and in years previous thereto, and to the payment- 
of interest on them and on others still to fall due. The debt of the State is 
not, therefore, actually increased by that amount. 

" The contingent liability of the State, incurred by the General Assembly 
during the time that my predecessor was in office, is represented by the in- 
dorsement of the State upon bonds of railroad companies. 

" The railroads upon whose bonds the indorsement of the State has been 
placed during the administration of Governor Bullock, and the amount of 
such indorsement as they appear from the records of this department and 
from the books in the offices of the Secretary of State and treasurer, are as 
follows : 

Alabama & Chattanooga, $ 194,400 

Brunswick & Albany, . 3,300,000 

Cartersville & Van Wert, . . . . . . . . 275,000 

Cherokee Railroad, 300,000 

Macon & Brunswick, 2,150,000 

Georgia Air Line, . . ' 240,000 

South Georgia & Florida, 464,000 

Total, 16,923,400 

" At the last session of the Legislature, the charter of the Cartersville & 
Van Wert road was so amended as to change the name of that road to the 
Cherokee Railroad, and the indorsement of the State was placed upon the 
bonds of the road under its new name. 

" The bonds of the Georgia Air-Line road, upon which the indorsement of 
the State was placed, have been cancelled by the officers of that road and re. 
turned to this department, and are now in the treasurer's office. This in- 
dorsement amounts to $240,000, and should be deducted from the total 
amount above stated. The sum of $6,683,400 then remains, which repre- 
sents the total amount of contingent liability of the State, now outstanding, 
incurred during the administration of Governor Bullock. 

" It has been ascertained from the officers of the Macon & Brunswick Rail- 
road Company, that $400,000 of the bonds of that company were indorsed by 
Governor Charles J. Jenkins, no record of which indorsement is found on the 
books of this department. If we add this sum to that last above stated, we 
have an amount of $7,083,400, which represents the whole amount of contin- 
gent liability incurred by the State since the adoption of the policy known as 
" State Aid." The conditions upon which this aid is granted are familiar to 
your honorable body. As the State does not indorse the bonds of any road 
until a specified portion of that road has been actually completed, and then 
only for a sum equal to half the cost of construction, and as she has a prior 



480 administratio:n" of gov. bullock. 

lien upon the property of the road, in the event the conditions upon which 
her indorsement is given are not complied wilh, it is not believed that she 
•will ever be the loser to any great extent, and this contingent liability should 
not by any means be put down as actual indebtedness. 

" The above statement covers the whole pei-iod that my predecessor was in 
office, and is a complete and accurate summary of his official action in the 
matter of which it treats." 

Western and Atlantic Railroad Lease. 

In December, 1871, under resolution of the Legisla- 
ture, a committee composed of lion. Wm. M. Reese and 
Hon. A. D. Nunnally of the Senate, and Hons. Geo. M. 
Netherland, Charles B. Hudson, and Geo. F. Pierce, Jr., 
was appointed, " to investigate the fairness or unfairness 
of the contract made between Rufus B. Bullock as gov- 
ernor, and the present lessees, known as the Western 
& Atlantic Railroad Company, by which the' road with 
all its appurtenances was leased to that company, on the 
twenty-seventh day of December, 1870, imder the act of 
the Legislature passed at the last session, and to in- 
vestigate the question of fraud in said contract, if any 
exists." 

The Lease Act, though passed by the Republican legis- 
lature, and sanctioned by their governor, was introduced 
by Hon. Dunlap Scott, a Democrat, warmly advocated by 
Democratic members, and approved by a large majority 
of the people of the State. This great public work, as 
was shown in the early part of this volume, was long a 
source of public expense, in addition to the vast cost and 
public debt for construction. It was, moreover, a politi- 
cal agency in the hands of dominant parties, as well as a 
cause of irritation and strife, not to say of fraud and 
public corruption. We have seen the magic and striking 
revolution in its management under Governor Brown, 
when he came into power in 1857; and his grand success 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 481 

thence up to and during the war, in making it a source 
of revenue instead of a public burden. 

It had now passed into the hands of an administration, 
was controlled by appointees not possessing the public 
confidence, and was being made a wreck as to material ; 
and also a drain on the public treasury. The party had 
power to pass a pending bill to sell the road, and, as we 
have seen, had wonderful facility for spending and squan- 
dering the money. Foster Blodgett, the superintendent 
under Governor Bullock, who with him had drawn out 
upwards of $600,000 of the State's funds from Clews, her 
agent for the sale of bonds in New York, on the pretence 
of paying the expenses of the road, was then asking the 
Legislature for an appropriation of $500,000 to repair 
the road. 

During the twenty years that had elapsed since the 
completion of the road, upwards of $4,000,000 had been 
appropriated out of the treasury from time to time for it, 
a sum far exceeding the amounts, paid into the treasury 
from it, leaving out the war period of heavy payments in 
depreciated currency. 

The public mind was ready to accept a solution of the 
matter which promised to stop the immense leakage from 
the treasury and increase of taxation to meet it ; prevent 
the loss of the property, proven in the time of Governor 
Brown to be immensely valuable, by a sale of the road, 
and sequestration and peculation of the proceeds by un- 
safe men in power; and, in addition, a reasonable and 
steady income to the State for a period of twenty years, 
with the road and all its appurtenances reclaimed from 
waste, kept and returned in good order at the end of 
the lease. The public mind was still better satisfied and 
pleased when the lease was awarded to a company 

31 



482 ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

headed by Ex-Governor Brown himself. It was at once 
an assurance of its success as well as good faith and integ- 
rity. 

The Legislature had been elected without reference 
to it. There were strong prejudices against Governor 
Brown, and some of his associates who were Northern 
men ; there was vindictive feeling against Governor 
Bullock, then a refugee from the State. There was al^^o 
a competing company for the lease, having among the 
members many men of worth, integrity, political and 
social influence, and financial ability, to which power and 
influence was added that of some of the most able and 
popular men in the State, who were retained as attorneys. 

The charge through the press that the lease contract 
Avas fraudulent was easily made, and met with the sym- 
pathy of a large number of the best people in the State ; 
and there was no solution to satisfy either side but a 
thorough and sifting investigation. It was made by able 
lawyers who composed the committee, men of integrity, 
and resolute to bring out facts, with the period of several 
months within which to perform their work. 

When their report came in at the July session, 1872, the 
matter was ably discussed for consecutive days in each 
House, a large majority in each House agreeing with the 
minority of the committee, sustaining and vindicating the 
lease in full harmony with an overwhelming majority of 
the people of the State, as everywhere indicated by their 
outspoken voice and through the press. 

It was against all the committee except Mr. Nunnally, 
and against a highly respectable minority of the General 
Assembly, many of whom in the heat of the contest ad- 
hered to their original convictions and feelings against 
the lease. 



ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 483 

The General Assembly adopted this resolution, which 
put the whole matter at rest thence to this time : — 

" That, in the opinion of this General Assembly, the 
lease of the Western & Atlantic Railroad secures to 
the State a certain sum for rental much larger than can 
be hoped for under political control." 

The wisdom of preventing the sale of this public work 
by this plan to lease it is abundantly manifest by the 
fact that the company, after expending large amounts 
of their own money to repair, improve, equip and make it 
a first-class road, and having kept it up to that standard, 
has paid into the State treasury the monthly rental of 
$25,000 for nine years and three months (this April, 
1880), making an aggregate of $2,975,000 which have 
gone in lieu of the people's taxes. The company has 
also made money largely, and holds the road for the State 
with its value largely enhanced. 

The lease act made $25,000 per month the minimum 
rate of rental, required bond and ample security of $8,- 
000,000, that the lessees be at least seven in number, and 
a majority of them be bona fide citizens of this State, and 
that they be worth above their indebtedness at least 
$500,000, and forbade the governor to lease to a com- 
pany that tendered even doubtful security. 

A bid of $36,500 was made by a company all of the 
city of Atlanta, composed of M. G. Dobbins, Foster Blod- 
gett, A. K. Seago, Henry Banks, W. B. Dobbins, John 
K. Wallace, Wm. McNaught, James Ormond, Thomas 
Scrutchins, James M. Ball, A. C. and B. F. Wyley, T. J. 
Hightower & Co., P. and G. T. Dodd, Abbot & Bro., John 
Collier, S. B. Hoyt, John M. Harwell, W. J. Tanner, and 
A. Leyden, who showed that they were worth above their 
indebtedness, $950,000 ; and tendered as security the 



484 ADMINISTEATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 

Central Eailroad and Banking Company, the South- 
western Railroad Company, and the Macon & Western 
Railroad Company. 

Notice was filed with the governor, by W. S. Holt, 
president of the Southwestern Railroad ; A. J. White, 
president of Macon & Western Railroad ; and W. B. John- 
son, agent of the Central Railroad & Banking Company, 
denying the authority of this company to tender those 
corporations as security, and refusing to become their 
security on their proposal to lease. 

The company who obtained the lease showed that 
they were worth above their indebtedness ^4,000,000. 
It was composed of Joseph E. Brown, Benjamin H. Hill, 
Wm. S. Holt, John T. Grant, Andrew J. White, Benja- 
min May, Hannibal I. Kimball, John P. King, Richard 
Peters, Charles A. Nutting, Wm. B. Johnson, Wm. C. 
Morrill, Alexander H. Stephens, and H. B. Plant, all of 
this State, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, John S. De- 
lano of Ohio, Wm. T. Walters of Maryland, Thomas A. 
Scott of Pennsylvania, Edmond W. Cole of Tennessee, 
George Cook of Connecticut, Ezekiel Waitzf elder of New 
York, Thomas Allen of Missouri, and Wm. B. Dinsmore 
of New York. 

They offered as security the Central Railroad and Bank- 
ing Company, the Southwestern Railroad Company, the 
Macon & Western Railroad Company,the Georgia Railroad 
& Banking Company, the Atlanta & West Point Railroad 
Company, the Macon & Brunswick Railroad Company, the 
Brunswick & Albany Railroad Company, all in this State ; 
Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad Company, and the St. 
Louis & Iron Mountain Railroad Company, with verifica- 
tion as to the worth of the applicants and the securities 
offered. 



ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. BULLOCK. 485 

Governor Bullock decided that this was the only bid 
that complied with the requisitions of the lease act, and 
awarded the lease to this company. And thereupon the 
road and all the property that appertained to it were 
turned over to them, at the stipulated rental of $25,000 
per month, or $6,000,000 for the whole period. 



CHAPTER XV. 

A Summary of Goyernor Brown's Character. 

The personal history of Governor Brown is blended 
with and becomes an important paft of the history of 
the State, as appears up to the time of his displacement 
by the military power of the United States at the close of 
the late war ; and his political course after the war and 
during the period of the reconstruction of the State, and 
of political parties fully appears in that part of our narra- 
tive. 

Governor Brown like all leaders of the people has 
been the subject of opposition, and has suffered defeat. 
The failure of the Confederacy was a sore and humili- 
ating defeat to him, as well as to all the dominant party 
leaders of the South. After his brilliant triumphs before 
the people of the State, anterior to and during the war, 
never having been defeated in any popular election, 
and after he had become the leader of reconstruction 
in this State and the subject of extreme and bitter oppo- 
sition by his former political friends and allies, he be- 
came a candidate for the first time before a legislative 
body — a body composed of a large majority of members 
agreeing with him in political tenets. He was nomi- 
nated by the party caucus for the office of United States 
senator. His former defeated rival in 1863 for the office 
\oi governor, the Hon. Joshua Hill, became also a candi- 
•date and, dividing the Republican and receiving the 



GOVERNOR BROWN'S CHARACTER. 487 

Democratic vote of the General Assembly, was elected 
over Brown. 

Soon afterward he was nominated by Governor Biil- : 
lock and confirmed by the Senate, as chief justice of the < 
supreme court of the State for the term of twelve years. 
It had been eleven years since he resigned the judge- J 
ship of the Blue Ridge circuit, to enter the Executive ^ 
office. He had grown older and maturer in judgment, ( 
his intellectual powers had been quickened and strength- 
ened by constant and often intense and exciting labor 
and application in the matters of state. The people, 
even those who severely condemned his late political 
course, awarded to him superior mental power and fit- 
ness for the judicial office. 

The expectation of the public was amply fulfilled in 
the prompt, firm, able, and impartial administration of the 
chief justice during his short career. Hon. Hiram 
Warner — who had long been a superior court judge in early 
life, a superior court judge after the close of the war, a 
supreme court judge for eight years on the first organiza- 
tion of the court, and since the war chief justice, and 
who is now the chief justice — and the Hon. H. K. Mc- 
Kay, a man of great ability and labor, were his associates. 
Many of the questions for adjudication were new and ex- 
citing to the public mind. The judges sometimes dif- 
fered in opinion and, all being made of stern material, 
they continued to differ. The published opinions are 
characterized by learning, ability, and firmness, and form a 
series of authoritative decisions on all the important legal 
and constitutional questions of that period. In the latter 
part of 1870 Governor Brown resigned the office of chief 
justice and took charge of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, 
as president of the company of lessees, as we shall see. 



488 GOVERNOE BROWN'S CHARACTER. 

His career since retiring from active connection with 
politics appears to the pubhc to have been, if possible, 
better adapted to his capabilities and talents, and has 
been crowned with still greater success, as a financier, in 
the management of the public enterprises confided to him, 
as well as in that of his own private fortune ; for the ten 
years intervening are matters of universal commendation 
and approval in commercial and business circles, because 
of a general and grand success, free from all well grounded 
suspicions, implication or charges of unfairness, fraud or 
violation of public or private faith and engagements. 
In this characteristic, which distinguishes him from 
many of his contemporaries, he has erected to himself a 
monument that will be -and should be more enduring 
than the stones that an earthly accumulation may and 
will, within a few years rapidly coming and going, place 
above his resting place in mother earth. 

One of the enterprises in which he embarked, which 
has proven to be a grand financial success,, and connects 
him directly with the material welfare and progress of 
the State, in the development of a part of her vast sub- 
terranean wealth, was that of coal mining at Sand Moun- 
tain in Dade county, near the borders of Alabama and 
Tennessee. This enterprise began as a private company, 
but was afterward incorporated under the name of the 
Dade Coal Company. The stock is owned, one-half by 
Joseph E. Brown, and son Julius L. Brown ; the other 
half by John T. Grant, -and son W. D. Grant, and W. C. 
Morrill, of Atlanta. Ex-Governor Brown has been pres- 
ident of this company from its organization to this time. 
The company owns fifteen thousand acres of lands of 
untold mineral deposits ; employs three hundred State 
penitentiary convicts as lessees of the State 3 and about 



GOVERXOE BROWN'S CHARACTER. 489 

one hundred other persons as enghieers, laborers, over- 
seers, and guards. Their works turn out from 13,000 to 
14,000 bushels of coal per day; which yields a large 
amount of coke, as good as any in the United States, 
which supersedes the burning of timber for charcoal. 

In addition to these extensive coal and coke operations, 
under the presidency and sagacious management of Ex- 
Governor Brown, that company in connection with Mr. J. 
C. Warner of Tennessee has lately purchased the Rising 
Fawn iron property and furnace, in Dade county, embrac- 
ing about seven thousand acres, including a large amount 
of coal and iron ore, and has upon it one of the finest 
iron furnaces of the country. 

The whole property, including construction of the fur- 
nace and improvements, cost the new company, the origi- 
nal owners, upwards of a half million of dollars. The 
company, under authority of an act of the Legislature, 
issued their bonds to the amount of |300,000 secured 
by mortgage on the property, and, having made default 
of payment of the interest for a considerable period of 
time, the bondholders proceeded to foreclose the mort- 
gage in the United States circuit court for Georgia. Un- 
der the decree of foreclosure, the property was sold 
by the United States marshal at Atlanta, and purchased 
by the Dade Coal Company, and Mr. Warner, an experi- 
enced iron manufacturer, for one hundred and thirty 
thousand dollars. These parties are operating the fur- 
nace successfully. It consumes from eighty to ninety 
tons of coke per day, which is made at the Dade coal 
mine ; also consuming per day about one hundred tons 
of iron ore, and producing per day about fifty tons of 
pig iron. 

In connection with this the Dade Coal Company is 



490 GOVERNGE BEOWN'S CHAEACTEE. 

constructing a railroad from Rogers station on the West- 
ern and Atlantic railroad to some inexhaustible deposits 
of superior iron ore, located on Petet's creek in Dade 
county ; from which it is expected the company will ship 
large quantities to the different places in the South. 

In view of the vast improvements in railways and 
works at the company's expense, the vast and increasing 
demand for their products, and that of the deposits of coal 
and iron belonging to them, these enterprises taken to- 
gether are much the largest and most important of any 
of the kind ever made in the State. 

His successful management,while governor, of the West- 
ern & Atlantic railroad, as the propert}" of the State ; 
the conversion of the immense public capital invested in 
it, from what was constantly denounced as a vast political 
machine attended with public expense, to the basis of a 
well managed and paying railroad ; excluding political 
corruption and private peculation, making it a source of 
great income to the State treasury, — has only been equaled 
by his successful career as president of the company of 
lessees from the State, from 1870 to this time. 

Perhaps no higher tribute has been paid to his superior 
forecast, sagacity, and entire safety and reliability as a 
business man, than the presidency of the Southern Rail- 
way and Steamship Association, in 1874, upon its organ- 
ization, and the annual re-election from that time to the 
present. 

This association embraces all the steamship lines 
running down the Atlantic coast, and most of the railways 
east of the Mississippi river, between the Potomac and 
the Ohio. 

His grand and far-seeing policy of public education, 
that engrossed so much of his heart and mind while gov- 



GOVEENOE BEOWN'S CHAEACTEE. 491 

ernor, far in advance of the situation and public spirit of 
that period, has grown upon the succeeding period, and 
has already attained a wonderful success, and promises 
still greater in the near future. While not holding any 
political ofiice, he has, since the adoption of the school 
system provided for by the constitution of 1868, held the 
position of president of the educational board of Fulton 
county, and has also been a most devoted member of 
the board of trustees of the State university of Georgia 
for upward of twenty years. He has educated his sons 
there in later years, but from his earliest connection with 
this great center of Southern learning, he has been an ar- 
dent and devoted friend in public and private, .devoting 
his mind with all its power, to the consideration of the 
vast and comprehensive aims of the institution. And it 
is no disparagement to the array of able and devoted men 
who are associated with him, that he has always exercised 
a very large and controlling influence in the councils and 
deliberations of the board. 

In no circle he ever enters as a participant is he looked 
down upon by a senior in ability, power, practical judg- 
ment, and influence. Most men, even of great ability, 
eminence, and wealth, who are associated or come in bus- 
iness contact with him, have long since learned to look 
up and defer to this prodigy of a man, who, within a few 
years after leaving the old-field log-cabin school and the 
handle of the plow, sprang to the first rank, not only as 
a statesman and jurist, but as a philanthropist in project- 
ing enterprises for the public good, and as a man of far- 
seeing wisdom and p.udence in all matters of business, 
either for the public or as related to his own private 
affairs. 
^ And if superior excellence is to be found in one sphere 



492 GOVEENOR BEOWN'S CHAEACTEE. 

of his activity of mind and body over another, it is per- 
haps in the last named department. He grew up a farmer 
boy, and has carried forward his early training to 
great improvement, and with great profit to the present. 
In addition to the public enterprises that engross so much 
of his time and mind, he has kept up farming as a con- 
stant business ; and although he has not figured in the 
current agricultural literature of his time, he has been 
eminently practical and successful in his investments and 
operations. In this, a ^ in every other matter under his 
control, he has been endowed with almost prophetic wis- 
dom in the selection of agents and superintendents ; and 
has with them what but few men can truthfully claim in 
business matters, that, added to inflexible justice and 
promptness in dealing, he is invariably firm in the re- 
quirement of faithfulness from them. 

He has three large farms in Northern Georgia, in the 
counties of Cherokee and Gordon, on which, by his 
regular direction, through <imployes, there is annually 
carried on a well diversified and profitable system of agri- 
culture. 

But the plan adopted by Governor Brown soon after 
the war, of drawing in investments from other sources, 
and placing them in the charred and desolate ruins of the 
wonderfully progressive city of Atlanta, has been per- 
haps in proportion to or ginal costs the most powerful 
and effective agency in the rapid accumulation of his fort- 
une. 

To all who would study the business example of Joseph 
E. Brown with profit, it is not considered out of place to 
add that but few men have been endowed as he is, 
with brain capacity, energy, the power of endurance and 
perseverance, quickness of apprehension and rapidity of 



GOVERNOR BROWN'S CHARACTER. 493 

decision ; and perfection of schemes and plans for his pur- 
poses ; but few, who like him, can either mould and brino- 
about circumstances, or adapt themselves to the unavoid- 
able. '' And there are but few who are so entirely exempt 
from habits of intemperance and excess as to hope for 
his perfect steadiness and regularity of life. These quali- 
ties in the ex-Governor when realized to exist, as all do 
realize them who have an opportunity, indicate at once to 
th« reflecting the sources of his great success. 

But there is one mental and business habit, and of ac- 
tion and repose, that all, now and hereafter, may study 
and practice with benefit. 

He works with the regularity of a perfectly adjusted 
machine ; is temperate in the application of supporting 
diet, as is a skilled machinist in the application of steam ; 
and sleeps by the force of controlling will power as 
promptly and soundly as the wheels and levers of the 
machine stop and rest when the steam is shut off. This 
is the great and valuable key to explain how a man of 
naturally frail and feeble, though tough and durable physi- 
cal constitution has been able to live, enjoy health, and 
perform the herculean labor he has for the whole period 
of his manhood. 

He is different from almost all business men in another 
mental habit ; that is, one thing at a time. When Brown 
is on railroading, or coal, or iron mining, farming, or any 
other subject, for the time being all his powers are so en- 
grossed in and devoted to that as to shut out all the 
others ; and when he suspends, the subject is laid aside at 
a given point, and precisely at that point, when the time or 
occasion arises to make it necessary, he resumes it as easily 
and promptly as the tailor resumes work upon an unfin- 
ished garment, or the carpenter the incomplete edifice. 



494 GOVEENOE BEOWN'S CHAEACTEE. 

But not by far the least important method and agency 
of the financial success, in all his large and small enter- 
prises, may be summed up in one word, promptness. 
It is a fundamental and tenaciously adhered to principle — 
adopted from boyhood and followed without exception, 
up to the present — to meet every financial engagement 
or liability with absolute promptness, no matter what the 
inconvenience or cost might be. Hence, his credit has 
never been the subject of criticism or doubt in any finan- 
cial circle. This, with the sagacity and forecast which 
were in great measure the gift of the Creator, and which 
have been cultivated and enlarged by practice that ena- 
bled him to determine when it was safe and advisable to 
make those engagements, has coijtributed wonderfully to 
the success that has crowned the laborious life of Joseph 
Emerson Brown. For the sake of the moral, religious, 
financial, educational and material welfare of his country 
and ours, it will be well if the period under Divine Provi- 
dence is still distant in the future, when the sorrowful 
mind of his memorialist shall be called on to set forth the 
deeds of benevolence and charity, of the honest business 
man, jurist, statesman, philanthropist, and Christian. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Supplement Prepared for the Publishers, Bringing 
THE Narrative of events to September, 1883. 

Colonel Fielder's volume ends with the last, the 15th 
chapter. The current of events in Georgia is brought 
from the year 1872, when he closes his narrative, up to 
the date of the publication of the book in September, 
1883. 

The administration of Gov. James M. Smith continued 
until the 12th day of January, 1877. Among the more 
important pubUc matters during his terms that have not 
been alluded to were the establishment of the depart- 
ments of agriculture and geology, and the endowment of 
the State' University at Athens with the Land Scrip Fund, 
and the resulting organization of branch colleges at Mil- 
ledgeville, Cuthbert, and Thomasville. The department 
of agriculture was begun on the 26th of August, 1874, 
by the appointment of Dr. Thomas P. Janes as commis- 
sioner. He was reappointed in 1878, resigned in Septem- 
ber, 1879, and was succeeded on the 24th of September, 
1879, by the Hon. John T. Henderson, who is still commis- 
sioner. It is difficult to measure the value of this depart- 
ment. It has introduced rust-proof oats and wheat, ren- 
dering these valuable crops a certainty. It has not only 
protected the farmers from loss by frauds in commercial 
fertilizers,but it has by the proceeds of inspection supported 
the department and paid large sums into the State treas- 
ury, running as high as $64,060.23 in a single year. It 



496 DEPAETMENT OF GEOLOGY. 

has operated a constant and valuable interchange of ideas 
and practices among the planters. It has distributed 
new and valuable seeds for trial and adoption. It has 
revolutionized the old systems of planting, furnishing 
progressive methods and processes, increasing the yield 
and lessening the cost of production. Its periodical pub- 
lications of farming intelligence have disseminated bene- 
ficial information, and formed the basis of valuable 
statistics and comparison of experiences. Its manuals 
upon special stock industries have been a liberal education 
to the people in such specialties. Each year adds to the 
efficiency and utility of this department. 

The department of geology was inaugurated by the 
selection of Dr. George Little as State geologist, August 
10, 1874. The department was run until the year 1879, 
when the General Assembly unwisely refused to appro- 
priate the necessary funds to continue its operations. 
The benefit of a complete geological survey of the State 
may be understood from the valuable practical results 
that have followed from the partial survey that was 
made. Large mining and manufacturing enterprises 
have sprung into existence, drawing capital and increas- 
ing the taxable wealth of the State, based upon the revela- 
tion of the resources of the Commonwealth made by the 
geological department. 

The recent death of Ex-Gov. Charles J. Jenkins recalls 
that during the term of Governor Smith, that venerable 
and illustrious citizen and chief magistrate of the State 
returned to the executive department the executive seal 
which he had carried with him when removed from his 
high office by the military. The Legislature of 1872 
passed a resolution introduced by the Hon. J. B. Gum- 
ming authorizing the governor to present to Governor 



ADMINISTRATION" OF GOV. COLQUITT. 497 

Jenkins a gold copy of the executive seal with the suggest- 
ive inscription upon it, " Presented to Charles J. Jenkins 
by the State of Georgia," and the words "/« arduis Fi- 
delis'^ Governor Smith performed this agreeable duty 
through lion. J. B. Gumming in an appropriate letter, to 
which Governor Jenkins made an eloquent response ; in 
the recent legislative honors paid to the memory of Gov- 
ernor Jenkins, the orator Col. Charles C. Jones, Jr., made 
touching; reference to this incident. 

During Governor Smith's term Gen. John B. Gordon 
was elected to the United States Senate, in 1873, while 
Hon. Alexander H. Stephens was re-elected to Congress, 
from which he had retired to private life before the war. 
In 1875 the Hon. Benjamin H. Hill was elected to Con- 
gress. 

Governor Smith was succeeded by Gov. Alfred H. Col- 
quitt, who held the exalted office of chief magistrate from 
the 12th of January, 1877, until December 4th, 1882. 
The administration of Governor Colquitt was marked by 
many important public events and marked changes in the 
State government. The leading political occurrence during 
his terms was the sweeping alteration of the organic law 
of the State by the constitutional convention of 1877, of 
which the lamented Jenkins was the president. The 
Constitution of 1868, while it was a very good instrument, 
labored under the odium of having been framed by a 
body chosen under the strong dictation of bayonet rul6, and 
there was a large element in the State who held it in such 
disfavor that after continued agitation of the subject the 
Legislature of 1877 passed an act giving the people an 
opportunity to vote a constitutional convention into ex- 
istence if they desired it. The vote was a very small 
one, aggregating 87,238, and the convention was carried 

32 



498 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION" OF 1877. * 

by 9,124 majority. The body was a fair representative 
organization of the State's best men ; there were 28 pub- 
lic men who had been governors, United States senators, 
congressmen, and judges. The hirgest measure enacted 
was the creation of the commission to manage the rail- 
roads; the terms of officers were shortened, and sala- 
ries reduced ; judges and solicitors were made elective by 
the Legislature instead of appointive by the Governor 
with the advice and consent of the Senate ; the State 
House officers were made elective by the people instead 
of by the Legislature ; the homestead was reduced ; State 
aid was forever prohibited ; the payment of the illegal 
bonds was forbidden ; the increase of the public debt was 
inhibited ; biennial sessions of the General Assembly 
were adopted ; an attempt was made to restrict local leg- 
islation by requiring local notice, and burdening legislation 
with troublesome formalities. The people were allowed 
to vote on the question of locating the capital at Milledge- 
ville or Atlanta, and the reduction of the homestead ; 
the vote gave Atlanta a majority of 43,964; for the home- 
stead of 1877, 42,722; and for the ratification of the new 
Constitution, 69,495. 

The Legislature carried out the constitutional innova- 
tion for controlling the railroads by the creation of a com- 
mission. In October, 1859, Governor Colquitt appointed 
under this act as railroad commissioners, Ex-Gov. James 
M. Smith for six years, Major Campbell Wallace for four 
years, and Samuel Barnett for two years. Upon the ex- 
piration of Mr. Barnett's term in October, 1881, Governor 
Colquitt appointed Hon, L. N. Trammell, and Major Camp- 
bell Wallace was re-appointed in August, 1883, as his own 
successor. There has been a steady opposition by some 
of the railroads to the commission ; the Savannah, Florida 



THE RAILROAD COMMISSION. 499 

& Western railroad made an effort in the United States 
court to resist the commission, but failed. The Georgia 
railroad in the State courts instituted suit for the same 
purpose, but met with defeat ; every issue made in the 
law tribunals to dwarf the authority of the commission 
has failed. The Georgia raih^oad will carry its case 
to the Supreme Court of the United States, when there 
will be a final adjudication of the power of the Board, 

It is generally conceded that the commission has sought 
to do justice to the railroads while endeavoring to pro- 
tect the popular interest, and under its orders the busi- 
ness of the roads has increased. The practical workings 
of the body have been beneficial. The commission has 
made repute for itself and the State, and served as a 
model for other States. 

Governor Colquitt's administration was a singularly 
beneficial one in practical results for the State. At the 
very inception of his term he was called upon by the Gen- 
eral Assembly to send in a message giving suggestions 
upon public policy. He framed a document full of valu- 
able ideas that were afterwards carried out to a large ex- 
tent. He treated in this carefully prepared paper the 
questions of a complete return of property for taxation, of 
both a closer and cheaper collection of taxes, of reducing 
the cost of legislation, of cutting down the clerk hire of the 
General Assembly, of diminution of outlay in the printing, 
contingent, and building funds, of reducing the clerical force 
in all the executive departments, of abolishing superfluous 
offices and instituting a g'eneral system of small economies. 
He went into the details of these reforms, evincing; his 
careful study of the subject and mastery of the questions 
involved. 

During his terms there were paid into the public 



500 DECREASE OF PUBLIC DEBT. 

treasury from outside sources $213,731.34, on old claims 
connected with the war of 1836 and the Western & 
Atlantic railroad; the sum of $216,683 27 was collected 
from the railroads of the State on back taxes of 1874, 
1875, and other years, besides a larger annual railroad 
tax secured; the sum of $164,608.12 was collected in 
earnings from the Macon & Brunswick railroad that 
had not paid before anything to speak of; the floating 
debt of $200,000 was completely wiped out; the public 
debt was reduced from $11,095,879 to $9,343,500, or 
$752,879, in addition to four per cent, bonds redeemed; . 
the rate of taxation was reduced from five-tenths of one 
per cent., or fifty cents on the hundred dollars, to two 
and a half tenths of one per cent., or twenty-five cents on 
the hundred dollars, or one-half; the practical effect of 
the reduction of the rate of taxation being that under the 
five-tenths rate the large sum of $1,229,268 was raised 
on taxable property of $245,853,750 ; while under the 
two and a half tenths rate at the close of Governor 
Colquitt's terms, $700,000 was raised on $270,000,000 of 
property, the people being relieved of $750,000 in round 
numbers, of actual annual taxation. 

There were, during Governor Colquitt's admirable ad- 
ministrations, lengthy legislative investigations into sev- 
eral of the departments of the State government, includ- 
ing an examination into his own official act of endorsing 
$200,000 of the bonds of the Northeastern railroad. 
Governor Colquitt's conduct was fully endorsed, and he 
was re-elected governor by an overwhelming majority. 
The investigations into the State departments left the 
executive wholly unaffected. At the end of Governor 
Colquitt's term he was elected by the General Assembly 
to the United States Senate for the term of six years 



THE WESTERN AND ATLANTIC R. E. LEASE. 501 

beginning on the 4th day of March, 1883. This honor 
was won by this gentleman, like his re-election as Gov- 
ernor, under a full test of the public sentiment after con- 
tests of great warmth, and under circumstances peculiarly 
gratifying. 

The career of Governor Brown since 1872 has been 
full of steady growth in public esteem, the rectification 
of an unjust and severe public misconception of his. 
motives and acts during reconstruction, wider recognition 
of his private excellences, legitimate enlargement of his 
private means and influence and a broadening public use- 
fulness and honor. Resigning the distinguished position 
of chief justice after only two years most capable service 
and renouncing ten years of his term, a conclusive dem- 
onstration that his unpopular position upon reconstruc- 
tion had been uninfluenced by personal ambition, he 
devoted himself for years to the quiet pursuit of his pri- 
vate fortunes. His position as president of the company 
that leased the Western & Atlantic railroad brought 
him into various conflicts with the Legislatures of the State 
to repel assaults made upon the integrity of the lease. 
In these conflicts, covering the Legislatures of 1872 and 
1874, he exhibited all of those remarkable powers that 
belong to the man. Cool, poised, tireless, full of resources, 
aggressive, master of the subject, he made himself master 
of the situation. 

A joint committee of the General Assembly of 1872, 
consisting of Senators A. D. Nunnally and William M. 
Reese, and Representatives C. B. Hudson, George M. 
Netherland and George F. Pierce, investigated for weeks 
the circumstances of the granting of the lease. Every 
fact was patiently sought ; the examination of witnesses 
was as complete as it could be made ; the discussions 



502 LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATIONS. 

were full, covering the whole ground. The Seago-Blodg- 
ett company, as the rival organization seeking to obtain 
the lease was called, with strong counsel, made strenuous 
efforts to invalidate the lease contract. The result was a 
decisive victory for Governor Brown and his co-lessees ; 
the lease was affirmed in the most solemn manner. 

Again in 1874 a legislative assault was made upon the 
lease, and a lengthy investigation resulted in a complete 
victory for the lessees. In this as in the previous ordeal 
Governor Brown was the leader of the defence, exhibiting 
the same masterly qualities of management, and the same 
effective handling of a good cause that gave no chance for 
defeat and secured the triumph of the right against 
powerful and well-conducted attack. Governor Brown in 
this last contest gave a characteristic illustration of that 
species of ambush that in conflicts of argument and inter- 
est, as well as in war, proves very effective. The gentle- 
man antagonizing the lease was forgetful enough to deny 
the existence of a letter whose production overwhelmed 
him with confusion, weakened his effort and discomfited 
him to such an extent as to wholly emasculate his oppo- 
sition. Several times in Governor Brown's battles has 
he sprung forgotten letters upon opponents with power- 
ful effect. And his antagonists have learned to dread his 
resources and strategy. 

The last General Assembly made another lengthy inves- 
tigation into the lease to ascertain the status of the bond 
and the ownership of the shares, and referred the whole 
matter to the attorney-general, with instructions to report 
to the Governor whether the bond should be strengthened, 
and, if after notice the lessees should fail to do so, to 
institute suit to abrogate the lease. All of this was done. 
The present General Assembly after a full discussion of 



GOV. BROWN'S MINING ENTEEPRISES. 503 

the matter wisely passed a resolution to dismiss the suit 
and let the lease alone. Senator Brown made an argu- 
ment before the Senate committee which covered the 
whole ground. This powerful paper of the distinguished 
president of the lease company was conclusive. It placed 
the matter in so strong a light, and was backed by 
so large a public sentiment in the State, that the Legisla- 
ture by an overwhelming majority passed the resolution 
to dismiss the suit, declining to either require an increase 
of the bond or the payment of the costs of suit by the 
lessees, both of which propositions were pressed. This 
decisive action is probably a final settlement of this active 
and costly lease agitation. It is safe to say that no other 
person could have carried the lease through the trying 
ordeals through which it has passed besides Senator 
Brown. And his triumph over so many and such vigor- 
ous attacks has been a crucial test of his remarkable 
abilities. 

Governor Brown for many years devoted himself almost 
exclusively to business pursuits, pretty nearly ignoring 
politics. He became, as we have seen, president of the 
Western & Atlantic Railroad Company. He also became 
president of the Dade Coal Company, working four hun- 
dred and fifty hands, of which three hundred and fifty 
were convicts of the State. This coal company owned 
about twenty-five thousand acres of coal and iron lands, 
and has been run with the same successful business 
methods that have marked all of the enterprises both 
large and small that have been managed by this remark- 
able man. He became president of the Walker Iron and 
Coal Company, which is worked in connection with the 
Dade Coal Company, working about ninety tons a day. 
The Dade Coal Company also owns very valuable beds of 



504 PHENOMENAL SUCCESS 

iron ore in Bartow county, which are being worked to 
profit by Governor Brown and his company. The writer 
has no doubt that these various mineral properties will em- 
brace one million dollars of capital. These three mineral 
interests controlled and worked by Governor Brown em- 
ploy over eight hundred hands. He was president of the 
Southern Railway and Steamship Association, which em- 
braces the great lines of ^'outhern freight transportation. 

Whatever scheme he handled was conducted by him 
with consummate ability and sagacity. He seemed equally 
at home in every species of material industry. No new 
business proved too much for his extraordinary and varied 
capacities, or was able to baffle his comprehension and 
mastery. His marvellous business career has been as phe- 
nomenal as his political course, as full of daring surprises 
of achievement. His executive ability was simply proof 
against any draft upon it; his multifarious trusts were any 
single one of them enough for an ordinary man. But so 
well systematized are his labors, so judicious his selection 
of agents and subordinates, so masterly and correct his 
grasp of the principles of each industry, so thorough his 
supervision, so firm his authority and so intelligent and 
sensible his policy, that he keeps well in hand his many 
enterprises and drives them all to remunerative success. 

He is less in a hurry than any living man, and he does 
all things thoroughly ; he is the most deliberate of men, 
and the most attentive to his smallest obligations. He 
forgets nothing, omits nothing, attends to everything. 
The most trivial undertakings that he assumes are re- 
membered and executed. His wonderful despatch of 
business, however, while due very largely to systematic 
method, and prompt attention, is attributable also to 
native qualities of mind and will that few men possess. 



IN BUSINESS LIFE. (;05 

lie hap, beyond the most of men, a quick intuition and a 
rapid judgment. He has uncommon industry and ■ 
energy, but with them the capacity of swift assimilation, 
and instantaneous decision. His mind leaps to prompt 
conclusions and accurate ones ; what he weighs in his mind 
is conned over with searching power of native analysis, 
looking dispassionately to just results without self-decep- 
tion growing out of self-interest, but with a marvellous 
power to confront and own the truth. Governor Brown 
does not allow his wishes to deceive his perceptions, as 
the most of men do. He has the sense to see the reality, 
in which the majority of men are like him, and the nerve 
to admit it to himself and act on it, in which he is unlike 
the majority of men. His superiority is in his more 
thorough investigation, swifter judgment, and more reso- 
lute determination. Add to these his perfect system and 
we have the range of business qualities that have made 
Governor Brown so phenomenally successful in business. 
All of the time, however, that Governor Brown was 
pursuing It is material plans of wealth, his name had ever 
a mysterious and perennial potency in public matters. 
He was the hidden power of Georgia politics, believed to 
be the ruling spirit of every campaign, endowed by the 
popular fancy with an inscrutable influence in framing 
every result, and alternately anathematized and be- 
praised as the omnipotent author of defeat or victory. 
His subtle agency was alleged in every piece of deft 
strategy that scored a triumph or discomfited an oppo- 
nent. His strong hand was imaginatively discerned in 
every political combination. His wily brain was claimed 
in each wise or fruitful movement of great parties. It was 
remarkable how the public mind endowed the man, and 
all this was a striking practical tribute to his genius. 



506 THE TILDEN-HAYES ELECTION. 

Governor Brown did occasionally make a political 
stroke ; he had urged the acceptance of reconstruction, 
but he stopped right at the line of what he considered 
absolute public necessity. He went not one step beyond. 
He had fought every wrong of the reconstruction regime 
from prolongation to robbery. He had opposed addi- 
tional reconstruction that sought an unnecessary resubju- 
gation of the Southern States. He had condemned Grant 
and Bullock when their administrations bore with gratui- 
tous severity upon our people ; when a man named Isaac 
Seeley invented a trick to get Congress to prevent the 
abridgment of voting for non-payment of taxes by the 
fabrication of affidavits showing the denial of the right 
to vote by false challenges, Governor Brown exposed it 
in an open letter. 

He was ready at all times and in any way to serve the 
public welfare. In the memorable contest between Mr. 
Tilden and Mr. Hayes for that great prize, the presidency 
of the United States, won by Mr. Tilden at the ballot 
box, but enjoyed by Mr. Hayes, Governor Brown took an 
important and historic part for the Democracy. Bur- 
dened with his multiplied and onerous business cares, 
suffering from a disease of the throat that rendered him 
really unfit for any duty private or public, he yet laid 
aside his private matters and, ignoring the admonitions 
of his physician, he w^ent to Florida and spent weeks 
there in obedience to the call of the Democratic party 
to give his great abilities to the investigation of the 
alleged election frauds upon whose proof rested the 
hope of making Hayes president. If the vote of Florida 
for Tilden could be set aside his election could be pre- 
vented. In this uncommon and novel contest for the 
presidency of fifty millions of people, the little orange 



THE FLORIDA CONTEST. 507 

El Dorado of the South was one of the battle fields, and 
Governor Brown was the Democratic leader m that cru- 
cial struggle, and the cynosure of the nation's gaze. 
Well did he bear the Democratic standard in this unique 
conflict. It involved the purity of the ballot, the revela- 
tion of fraud, and the vindication of the popular will. 
Through all the tedious and trying enquiry Governor 
Brown remained the unpaid advocate of public welfare 
and political honesty, with consummate ability, sleepless 
vigihance, and determined boldness, defending the right 
and exposing the wrong. His speech was a masterpiece, 
analyzing the law with unerring astuteness, and discussing 
the principles with profound power. 

Governor Starnes was the Republican executive of the 
State, claimino; the rig^ht to decide who were chosen elec- 
tors. The courts were sought to enjoin him from using 
this dangerous authority. With the decision in the hands 
of a partisan Governor there was no chance for the Demo- 
crats whatever. The Electoral Board had one Democratic 
member, and therefore there was more possibility of fair 
dealing before the Board than before the Executive. Gov- 
ernor Brown was chosen to make the argument before the 
court against the jurisdiction of the Executive in the 
matter, and his strong and conclusive argument given 
below settled this part of the ca'se. 

THE FLORIDA CONTEST. 
Text of Ex-Govkrxor Joseph E. Brown's Argument. 

" May it please your Honor : 

" As His Excellency, the Governor, in his answer in this case has not dis- 
claimed jurisdiction over the subject of canvassing the election returns, and 
has used no expression which amounts to a pledge, or which precludes him 



508 GOVERNOR BROWN'S ARGUMENT. 

from assuming the jurisdiction at any future day, it is proper to discuss the 
question as to his 

Legal Powers in the Premises. 

"In the division of labor in this case, the duty has been assigned me of 
submitting an argument which I have prepared with some care, showing that 
the Governor of the State of Florida has no power given by any statute 
of the State, or other known law, to canvass the returns of the election for 
electors of President and Vice-President of the United States, and determine 
the result. That power, as we contend, is vested by the statutes of the State 
in the Board of State canvassers composed of the attorney-general, the sec- 
retary of state and the comptroller of public accounts; and if vested in them, 
then the Governor has no right to exercise it, and an attempt to do so would 
be an assumption of power not conferred upon him. The question of the 
jurisdiction of yonr Honor to grant an injunction restraining His Excellency 
from the assumption or usurpation of such a power has been and will be fully 
discussed by other counsel who also appear for complainants in this bill. I 
shall confine myself to a discussion of the questions above mentioned. 

" And at the expense of being somewhat tedious, 1 shall take up the Con- 
stitution and laws of the United States bearing upon this question, and such 
of the statutes of the State of Florida as may be necessary to a proper under- 
standing of it, and discuss them. And I shall incorporate in this argument 
such liberal quotations from the statutes as may be necessary to show the 
current of legislation on this subject, and such as may lead us — construing 
the whole together — to a safe conclusion on the question of disputed juris- 
diction. In discussing this question it may be very important to inquire 
whether or not an elector of president and vice-president is a State offict-r. 

" The Constitution of the United States, article 2, section 1, paragraph 2, 
declares that, 'each State shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature 
thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of sena- 
tors and representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congi-ess.' 

" Article 12, amendments, declares that the electors shall meet in their re- 
spective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice President, and sets 
forth the manner of conducting such election by-ballot. It then provides for 
a meeting of the two Houses of Congress, when the President of the Senate 
shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the 
certificates, and the votes shall then be counted, and the person having the 
greatest number of votes for President shall be President, if such number be a 
majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have 
such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceed- 
ing three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Represen- 
tatives shall choose immediately by ballot the President. But in choosing 
the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each 
State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member 



GOVEENOR BROWN'S ARGUMENT. 509 

or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States 
shall be uecessary to a choice. 

Electors State Officers. 

" Now it seems very clear from these provisions of the Constitution of the 
United States that the electors of the several States who meet in their 
respective States act as the officers or representatives of their State, and' not 
a# officers of the Federal Government; and this conclusion is greatly strength- 
ened by the provision made for the election o£ President, in the event no one 
has received a majority of all the electors appointed. In that case, it is not 
the officers of the Federal Government, nor the representatives of the Federal 
Government who choose the President; but the House of liepreseutatives 
make the choice, the representation from each State having one vote. In 
other word.-j, each of the respective States by its representation in the House 
of Representatives in Congress casts one vote for President. In that case, 
the State of Florida has the same weight in the election of President as the 
State of New York. The election, in other words, is made by States, each 
speaking through its representation in the House of Representatives in the 
Congress of the United States, and not by the officers or agents of the Fed- 
eral Government. And it is necessary that two-thirds of all the States shall 
vote to make an election ; and a majority of all the States is necessary to a 
choice. 

" The Constitution of the United States, therefore, leaves no room for rea- 
sonable doubt that the electors for I'resident and Vice-President are the 
officers of their respective States, and that they act for their respective States 
in casting the vote for President and Vice-President, and in case of a failure 
of the electoral colleges to make a choice, the States themselves, each having 
equal weight with anotlier, through their representation in the House of 
Representatives of the United States, proceed to elect a President. So much 
for the constitutional provisions. 

Searching the Statutes. 

" The Act of Congress provides that electors of President and Vice-Presi- 
dent shall be appointed in each State, on the Tuesday next after the first 
Monday in November in every fourth year succeeding every election of a 
President and Vice-President. Revised statutes of the United States, sec- 
tion 131, section 133 declares that: ' Each State may by law provide for the 
filling of any vacancies which may occur in its college of electors, when such 
college meets to give its electoral vote.' Section 131 declares that, ' whenever 
any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has 
failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be 
appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the Legislature of such 
State may direct.' Section 135 declares that, ' the electors for each State 
shall meet and give their votes upon the first Wednesday in December in 



510 GOVERNOR BROWN'S ARGUMENT. 

the year in which they are appointed, at such place in each State as the 
Legislature of such State may direct.' Section 136 declares that, ' it shall be 
the duty of the executive of each State to cause three lists of the names of 
the electors of such States to be made and certified, and to be delivered to 
the electors on or before the day on which they are required by the preceding 
section to meet.' 

"An examination of these general provisions of the statutes of the United 
States seems to show very conclusively that the electors of President and 
Vice-President are in every case, and under every contingency, to be chosen 
by the respective States, that they ar6 the officers or representatives of such 
States — that they are not authorized to meet anywhere except within the 
limits of their respective States; and in case of a vacancy in the electoral 
college of any State, it is left to the State to provide for the filling of such 
vacancy. And in case any State has held an election at the proper time and 
failed to make a choice of electors on the day prescribed, her electors are to 
be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the Legislature of such 
State may direct. And it is 

"Worthy of Note, 

in this connection, that the electors are not directed either by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States or the laws of the United States to be appointed 
by popular election in the State; they are not, therefore, the representatives 
of the people of the United States, nor are they in the strict sense the repre- 
sentatives of the people of the State, but they are the representatives of their 
respective State?!. The State is left to determine for itself whether they shall 
be appointed by popular election, at which all the qualified voters in the State 
shall have a voice, or whether it will appoint them in some other manner. 
The State has a perfect right to appoint them in any manner directed by its 
Legislature. Prior to the late war the State of South Carolina appointed its 
electors by its Legislature. The State of Florida in the election of 1868 
appointed its electors by the Legislature and not by popular vote. The State 
of Colorado in the present election appointed its electors by its Legislature, 
and not by the popular vote. 

" The electors are, therefore, unquestionably the representatives or otficers 
of the State. They are appointed by the State to represent the State in 
casting the vote of the State. They are compelled to meet in the State, and 
they are paid by the State, and they are therefore officers of the State. 

" To show more clearly the distinction between State and Federal officers, it 
is only necessary to say that such provisions are made by the laws of the 
United States as to secure the appointment of all Federal officers independ- 
ently of the action or non-action of the respective States, But if a State 
should not choose to vote for President and Vice-President and should pass 
no law providing for the appointment of electors, and should make no such 
appointment, no power exists in the Federal Government to make any such 



GOVEENOR BROWN'S ARGUMENT. 511 

appointment. If the electors were officers of the Federal Government, it 
would not be in the power of the State to prevent their appointment ; but 
being officers of the State Government, it is left with each State to ajjpoint 
them or not, as she may think proper. Her failure to make the appoint- 
ment simply deprives her of her vote in the election of President and Vice- 
President. And she can exercise such right or refuse to exercise it at her 
discretion, independently, and without accountability to the Federal Govern- 
ment or any other power, which is 

Wholly Incompatible 

with the idea that the electors are Federal officers or Representatives of the 
Federal Government. 

"By reference to the act passed by the Legislature of Florida in 1846, it 
will be seen that the Governor, sixty days prior to the time provided by said 
act for the election of electors of President and Vice-President of the United 
States, was required, by proclamation to be inserted in at least one newspaper 
published at the seat of government, and such other papers printed in the 
State as he might see fit, to give notice of the time of such election, and of 
the number of electors of President and Vice-President to be chosen. And 
the persons qualified to vote for members of the House of Representatives of 
the General Assembly of the State (who were at that time confined exclusively 
to the white race), on the thirty-fourth day preceding the first Wednesday in 
December, unless it should be on Saturday or Sunday, and in that event on 
the succeeding Monday, in the year 1848, and in every fourth succeeding 
year, were to assemble at the place designated for holding elections, and were 
to proceed to elect a number of electors of President and Vie«-Pi-esident 
equal to the number of Senators and Representatives the State might be en- 
titled to in Congress, etc. 

"And it was made the duty of the inspectors of elections at the different 
precincts in each county to hold the elections iu the manner prescribed, and 
to seal up the poll-book of the election, which was to be carried within two 
days after the election to the sheriff of the county, who was required to 
attend two days succeeding the election at the court-house for the purpose of 
receiving the poll-books. 

" The sheriff upon receiving the poll-books was to administer an oath or 
affirmation to each inspector who delivered said poll-book, and receipt for the 
same. And it was the duty of the sheriff to deliver, or cause the same to be 
delivered, to the secretary of state at his office within twenty-five days after 
the election. 

The Returning Boards. 

" The poll-books, on the 26th day, unless it was Sunday, and in that event on 
the 27th day after the election, as the statute provides, shall be opened by the 
secretary of state in the presence of the comptroller-general and the treasurer 
of the State, and such sheriffs as may choose to attend ; the secretary of 



512 GOVERNOR BROWN'S ARGUMENT. 

state shall cause the poll-books as they are opened to be read aloud, and shall 
make out a fair abstract of the names of the persons voted for, and the num- 
ber of the votes given to each. He shall make out and sign a certificate 
containing in figures and words written at full length the number of votes given 
in the State for electors of President and Vice-President of the United States ; 
the names of the persons for whom such votes were given, and the number 
of votes to each, which certificate shall be recorded by the secretary in his 
ofiiee, and published in one or more of the newspapers printed in the State 
for the information of the public ; and the Governor shall forthwith make out 
for the number of persons to be elected, and who have the greatest number 
of votes, certificates of their being duly elected electors of Piesident and 
Vice-President of the United States, and transmit by special messenger or 
otlier safe conveyance the pi'oper certificate to each person so elected. Pro- 
vision is then made for the election in ctise of a tie, by lot, and the balance of 
the statute provides for the mode of filling vacancies in case of the absence 
of any elector, and for the manner of casting the vote, etc , and also for 
the election of electors in case of a vacancy in the offices of President and 
Vice-President. 

"As will subsequently appear, the whole election system of this State has 
been changed since the act of 1846, and the present plan is so much in con- 
flict with said act that no portion of it probably can be said to be still of 
force. But if the provision of said act in reference to the canvass of the 
electoral vote be still in force, then it is very clear that the power of canvass- 
ing is not given by said act to the Governor, but to the secretary of state, 
who was to make the canvass in the presence of the comptroller-general and 
treasurer, and such sheriffs whose duty it was to bring up the poll-books from 
the different counties as might choose to be present. And upon the fact 
being ascertained who was elected, when the vote was canvassed by the secre- 
tary of state, it was made his duty to make out and siu;n a certificate show- 
ing who was so elected, to record the same in his office, and to publish the 
result in one or more of the newspapers printed in the State, for the informa- 
tion of the public; and it was then made the duty of the Governor, upon such 
canvass and publication made by the secretary of state, to give the certifi- 
cates as is required by the Act of Congress and the statute of the State to 
the persons elected, not upon his own canvass of the votes nor upon a can- 
vass of votes made in his presence, but upon that made by the secretary of 
state in the presence of the officers above mentioned. 

The Goveunor's Duties. 

" It is further to be noted that, under the Act of 1846, the Governor was 
required to give sixty days' notice preceding the election, which it is not pre- 
tended was done by him in this case. In other words, neither the Governor 
nor the State House officers are now acting under the act of 1846, but under 
the acts passed in 1868 and in 1872 respectively. 



ARGUMENT IN FLORIDA. 51 3 

" The act of 1872 in its whole machinery differs from the act of 1846 up- 
on which we are informed those wlio claim jurisdiction over this question 
for the governor predicate, at least in part, their argument. 

" In the first jilace, the electors are not the same. Then only free white 
men were electors ; now the colored race as well as the white race are elec- 
tors. Then the sixty days' notice was required to be published by the gov- 
ernor ; now it is the duty of the secretary of state to make it out and deliver it 
to the slieriff of each county, stating in said notice what offices and vacancies 
are to be filled ^t such general election in the State, county, or district and 
to cause a copy to be published at least sixty days. 

" Then the inspectors of election could only be free white men, now they 
may be white or colored. Tlien they were appointed by the governor, now 
they are appointed by the county commissioners who are appointed by the 
governor. Then the inspectors of election at the different precincts or 
polling places returned the result to the sheriff not appointed by the 
governor, at the county site, within two days after the election ; now 
they are given six days to return it, not to the sheriff', who is now ap- 
pointed by the governor, but to the county judge, the clerk of the 
district court, and a justice of the peace, all appointed by the governor. 
Then the sheriff had twenty-five days within which to deliver the poll-book 
to the secretary of state, under penalty of one thousand dollars. Now 
thirty-five days are allowed for the returns to reach the office of secretary 
of state and governor. We might give numerous other particulars, in 
which the act of 1838 differs from and is inconsistent with that of 1846 ; but 
as the act of 1816 gave the canvass to the secretary of state, and not to the 
governor, we think it unnecessary. ^ We will next notice the 

Changes made ix the Canvassing Board 

by the act of 1868. As already shown, the act of 1846 gave the secretary of 
state power, in tlie presence of the officers already mentioned, to canvass the 
vote. The 28th section of the act of 18!)8 provides that, on the first Tues- 
day next after the fourth Monday in November, next after any general elec- 
tion, or sooner if th^ returns shall have been received from the several 
counties, the secretary of state, attorney-general, and comptroller, or any 
two of them, shall meet at the office of secretary of state pursuant to notice 
to be given by the secretary of state (or in his absence or inability to 
attend, by the governor,) and proceed to canvass the returns of such election 
and declare who shall have been elected by the highest number of votes to 
any office as shown by said returns. 

" Section 30 declares, ' When any person shall be elected to the office of 
elector of president or vice-president, or representative in Congress, the 
governor shall make out, sign and cause to be sealed with the seal of the 
State, and transmit to such person a certificate of such election.' 

" Thus it will be seen that the act of 1868 substitutes the secretary of 
33 



514 AEGUxMENT IN" FLORIDA. 

state, attorney-general, and comptroller as the canvassing board, in place of 
the secretary of state in the act of 1846, and requires a certificate from them 
of the election, similar to that made by the secretary of state under the act 
of 1846. 

" And by section 30, of the act of 1868, it is made the duty of the governor 
to make out and sign, and cause to be sealed with the seal of the State, and 
transmit to the person elected a certificate of his election, just as he was re- 
quired to do under the act of 1846, mider the canvass made by the secretary 
of state in presence of his associate officers. Under that statute, the secre- 
tary of state made the canvass in presence of the treasurer and comptroller- 
general ; under the act of 1868 the secretary of state, comptroller, and attor- 
ney-general make the canvass, and the governor in each case issues the 
certificate, upon the canvass as made and certified by them. The acts of 
1846 and 1868 are, therefore, in complete harmony on this point. 

The Act of 1871 

repeals the 28th section of the act of 1868, above quoted, and re-enacts it, 
substantially changing the canvassing board by substituting the clerk of 
the supreme court for the comptroller, and making the three officers, or any 
two of them with any other member of the Cabinet whom they may desig- 
nate, the canvassing board, and with the further change, that the canvass 
shall be on the 35th day after the holding of any election, general or 
special, that may hereafter be held for any State officer, member of the Leg- 
islature or representative in Congress, or sooner if the returns shall have 
been received from the several counties wherein elections have been held. 
The third section of 

The Act of 1872 

repeals the act of 1871 above referred to. The first, second and fourth sec- 
tions are still of force, and are the last acts passed by the Legislature upon 
that subject. Section one enacts as follows : — 

" ' The fi.rst section of an act to provide for the registration of electors and 
the holding of elections, approved August 6, 1868, is hereby amended so as 
to read as follows : A general election shall be held in the several counties 
in this State on Tuesday next succeeding the first Monday in November, 
in each year, in which elections are required to be held for an election of 
such of the following officers and representatives as are to be elected, that 
is to say : a governor, lieutenant-governor, representative in Congress, 
electors of president and vice-president. State senators and members of the 
Assembly and such county officers as are to be elected as provided by Con- 
stitution and laws.' 

" Sec. 2. The second section of said act is hereby amended so as to read as 
follows : 'a governor, lieutenant-governor, and electors of president and vice- 
president shall be elected in the year 1872 and every fourth year thereafter; 
senators in the districts designated by odd numbers in the year 1872 and 



ARGUMENT IN FLORIDA. 515 

every fourth year thereafter ; senators in the districts designated by even 
numbers, in the year 1871 and every four years thereafter ; a representative 
in Congress and members of the General Assembly, in the year 1872 and ev- 
ery two years thereafter; constables and such other county officers, as are to 
be elected in the year 1872 and every two years thereafter.' 

" ' Sec. 4. On the 35th day after the holding of any general or special elec- 
tion for any State officer, member of Legislature, or representative in Con- 
gress, or sooner, if the returns shall have been received from the several coun- 
ties wherein elections shall have been held, the secretary of state, attorney- 
general, aud comptroller of public accounts, or any of them together with 
any other member of the Cabinet who may be designated by them, shall 
meet at the office of the secretary of state, pursuant to a notice to be given 
by the secretary of state, and form a board of State canvassers and proceed 
to canvass the returns of said election, and determine and declare who shall 
have been elected to any such office, or as such member as shown by such re- 
turns. If any such returns shall be shown, or shall appear to be so irregular, 
false, or fraudulent that the board shall be unable to determine the true vote 
for such officer or member, they shall so certify, and shall not include such 
return in their determination and declaration ; and the secretary of state 
shall preserve and file in his office all such returns, together with such other 
documents and papers as may have been received by him or any of said 
board of canvassers. The said boai'd shall make "and sign a certificate con- 
taining in words written in full length the whole number of votes given for 
each officer, the number of votes given for each person, for each office, and 
for member of the Legislature, and therein declare the result; which certifi- 
cate shall be recorded in the office of the secretary of state, in a book to be 
kept for that purpose, and the secretary of state shall cause a certified copy 
of such certificate to be published once in one or more newspapers printed 
at the seat of government.' 

The Effect of the Statute. 

"Now we understand that the advocates of the assumption of jurisdiction 
by the governor put much stress upon the language of section four just 
quoted, which gives the board of canvassers jurisdiction in case of any State 
officer, member of the Legislature, or representative in Congress. It is claimed 
that this does not give the board jurisdiction in the case of electors of presi- 
dent and vice-president, because they are not again mentioned. They are 
mentioned in the first aud second sections of the act of 1872 just quoted, to- 
gether with the other State officers. In the fourth section they are not ex- 
pressly mentioned, nor is governor, lieutenant-governor, constable, or other 
county officers, which are all mentioned in sections one and two. The office 
of governor, lieutenant-governor, elector of president and vice-president, con- 
stable and county officer, which are all embraced in sections one and two, 



516 AEGUMENT IN FLOEIDA. 

are included in section four under the general designation of ' State officer.' 
As governor, lieutenant-governor, county officer, constable, etc., are all 
omitted by name in the fourth section, and are all included under the gen- 
eral term ' State officer,' so is elector of president and vice-president, which 
is repeated with them in each of the previous sections also omitted because 
included under said general designation. 

" As we think we have clearly shown in the commencement of this argu- 
ment that a presidential elector is a State officer, we see no room for any 
doubt that the term ' State officer,' in the fourth section gives express juris- 
diction in case of presidential elector to the canvassing board. Indeed, we 
think that part of the case too plain to require further argument. 

" We understand the assumption of jurisdiction by the governor in this 
case is also claimed on the ground of necessity. Pardon us for saying that 
this is the plea by which usurpation is always attempted to be justified, and 
■we trust yoiir honor will not find it necessary to countenance it in this case. 
The claim set up for the governor, as we understand it, is that the act of 
1872 gives to the canvassing board thirty-five days within which to complete 
the canvass, unless the returns from the several counties which held the elec- 
tions are sooner in. And it is argued, as the thirty-five days may extend be- 
yond the first Wednesday in December, the time fixed for the electoral col- 
lege to iTieet, that the State may lose her vote unless the governor assume 
the jurisdiction. This cannot be true, for the reason that the canvassing 
board is authorized to proceed as soon as the returns are in from the several 
counties where the elections were held, and if 

The Governor assumes the Jurisdiction 

he will not be authorized to proceed and issue the certificate upon the returns 
from only a part of the counties of the State. There is no reason why the 
canvassing board cannot take up the returns, canvass them and declare the 
result at as early a day as the governor can properly do it. There is, there- 
fore, no danger that the vote of the State will be lost, unless the inspectors 
of the election in some of the counties, selected by the county canvassers, ap- 
pointed by the governor, have failed to do their duty in sending up the re- 
turns to the county canvassing board ; or unless the county canvassing board, 
all of whom were appointed by the governor, fail to do their duty in sending 
up the returns to the secretary of state's office. As the law presumes that 
these officers will do their duty, and as the Democratic party is doing all in 
its power to urge them to send up the returns as early as possible, and is 
anxious for a fair canvass of the returns at the earliest day, when it can be 
done, there is, we trust, nothing to apprehend on the score of a loss of the 
vote of the State. There certainly cannot be if the governor's appointees 
discharge the duties imposed upon them by the statute, and their faikire to 
discharge it would be no reason why he should assume authority not conferred 
upon him either by the act of 1846, or any other statute of the State. 



ARGUMENT IN FLORIDA. 517 

" We beg to submit for the consideration of your Honor, one other view 
of the question which seems to us to be conclusive why the governor should 
neither consent, nor be permitted to exercise even a doubtful jurisdiction in 
this case. As already stated, the governor appoints all the county commis- 
sioners in every county in Florida, and has the power to fill all vacancies. 
The county commissioners appoint each board of election inspectors at each 
precinct in each county in this State. These inspectors are the managers of 
election at the precincts or polling places. They are virtually his appointees, 
because they are appointed by the commissioners appointed by the governor. 
They make the returns to the county canvassing board composed, as already 
stated, of the county judge, the clerk of the district court of the county, and 
one justice of the peace called in by them. The governor appoints each of 
these officers with the power of removal and of filling vacancies. He has 
the power to remove the justice of the peace at his mere caprice, at any time, 
and fill his vacancy. If a justice of the peace should be called in and should 
refuse to make such certificate as would be agreeable to him, his commission 
would be in the governor's power if he chose to revoke it. Under these 
circumstances it is not unnatural to suppose that he bad greatly the advan- 
tage of his democratic opponents in conducting the election in the different 
counties, and that he has a control over the elections and returns that no 
Democrat can have. 

The Governor's Power. 

" The governor is also himself the candidate of his party for re-election to 
the office of governor which he now holds, and if he assumes jurisdiction to 
canvass the votes by opening all the returns for the purpose of deteimining 
who are elected electors of president and vice-president, his decision would 
naturally have an undue weight with the State canvassing board who are to 
canvass the returns of his own election. The State canvassing board is also 
composed of the appointees of the governor of the State. One of them voted 
for Governor Tilden for president. The other two warmly i^upported Gov- 
ernor Hayes, and are not only appointees of the executive of this State, but 
the political and personal friends of the governor himself. They constitute 
a majority of the canvassing boai'd in the governor's election ; and if any 
fraudulent or improper returns should be counted by him, by mistake or 
otherwise, in determining who are elected electors of president and vice- 
president, it is scarcely to be presumed that his political friends on the State 
canvassing board, who have great respect for his opinions, when they come 
to canvass the governor's election, would overrule his decision in reference 
to the returns upon whicli he had already passed. Again, it gives him the 
advantage of opening all the returns ; and while he is canvassing the votes 
for elector of president and vice-president, he can look into the question as 
to how the vote stands between him and the democratic candidate for gov- 
ernor ; while the latter would have no such access to that part of the returns 



518 ARGUMENT IX FLORIDA. 

and would not likely be permitted to inspect them. This would give the 
governor an undue and unjust advantage in any matter connected with a 
contest, as to the returns in any county, as he would know io advance the 
exact state of the returns sent up to his office, while his opponent would not 
have that knowledge. For these reasons we trust, even if your Honor should 
consider the question a doubtful one as to the power of the governor, that 
you will give the benefit of your doubt in favor of the State canvassing 
board, where the Democrats have one representative and the Republicans 
two, and refuse to permit the governor to assume a jurisdiction which it 
seems to us it would be most unfair and unjust under the circumstances for 
him to exercise. 

Importance of a Fair Count. 

"It is not impossible, it is even probable, that the result of the presidential 
election may turn upon the vote of this State. The whole people of the 
United States are therefore interested in a correct canvass of the vote of 
the State. As already stated, the Democratic party have one member of the 
canvassing board, the Republicans have two. It would seem to be nothing 
but just and fair to the great Democratic party of the Union, which the 
result shows is an overwhelming majority- of the legal voters of tlie United 
States, that they should not be deprived of at least one member of the board 
that is to determine so important a result. If you should, upon a doubtful 
construction of the law, (and we deny that there is room for a reasonable 
doubt in favor of the governor's jurisdiction,) permit him to set aside the 
board and take upon himself the canvass of the returns, when he is known 
to be the Republican candidate for governor, with the whole election 
machinery of the State in his hands, it is not to be expected that such a 
course would contribute to the cause of peace, or would allay excitement or 
suspicion of unfairness, when his decision in favor of his own candidate for 
the presidency should be announced. The rights, and possibly the peace and 
prosperity, of more than forty millions of people may hang upon the result; 
and we ask you, in the name of justice and fair dealing, to leave the canvass 
in the hands of those where the law has placed it, and not to permit the 
governor to usurp a jurisdiction which would at least cause an overwiielming 
majority of the voters of the United States to believe, whether true or not, 
that it was done for a definite object and wath intent to produce a result 
which could not be produced upon a fair count before the board legally 
appointed to discharge that duty. 

In Conclusion, 

permit me to make a single suggestion in reference to the equity which these 
complainants have in their favor, in their application for mandamus against 
the State canvassing boaid. The law gives the board thirty-five days after 
the election within which to make the canvass, unless the returns from the 
several counties which held elections are sooner in. It is contended by the 



AEGUMENT IN FLORIDA. 519 

learned counsel for the defence that this is a discretion left with the board, 
and that they can take till the last day, if they think proper, before they 
commence the canvass; that is, they may wait till the lasi return is in, if 
all should come in, before the end of the thirty-five days ; and if not, until 
the last day of the thirty-five. 

"Now, what are the facts in this case? Outrageous frauds are charged in 
the elections in one or more of the counties, and their character is such that 
the complainants who allege the fraud will have to^produce evidence and 
possibly send for witnesses to make good their allegation. The other side 
will then most probably desire to be heard by evidence. Such an investi- 
gation in the case of a single county might take the greater part of the week 
if fairly and patiently heard. Where there may be several such cases to 
hear, a considerable length of time must be consumed by each, if there is a 
fair investigation. What the complainants in this case desire is, that your 
Honor will direct by mandamus that the board proceed with the canvass. 
This will give them time to hear evidence, and deliberate and decide justly 
in each case where there is a contest about the fairness of the election. And 
in case of any irregularities in the returns, when they are opened, would 
give time to send couriers to the counties from which such defective returns 
might be sent up, and, if possible, have the proper correction made. 

"But if they exercise their extreme discretion and do not commence till 
the last day, or till within the last two or three days, it will amount to a 
■practical denial of justice, as it will be an impossibility to hear the evidence 
and determine the questions of fraud that are to be raised within the time 
that will then be allowed bylaw for the Board to sit. The refusal, therefore, 
to commence the canvass in time to allow a fair investigation, is 

A Practical Denial 

of justice, and a great abuse of the discretion vested in the Board of Canvassers, 
and, as I understand it, this court has the power and it is its duty to control 
any person or officer over whom it has jurisdiction in the exercise of a dis- 
cretion when that discretion is being abused, and the abuse of the discretion 
without the intervention of the court will work irreparable mischief. Such 
must be the case if the discretion of the Board is not controlled in this in- 
stance, or if they do not consent without the control of your Honor to pro- 
ceed with the canvass. If the Governor were to renounce all jurisdiction 
over the subject matter, and the balance of the Returning Board will consent, 
as the attorney-general has consented, to proceed with the canvass, giving 
time for a full examination of the evidence, and a just and fair decision in 
the case of each county where there is a contest, then there would be no rea- 
son for the interposition of the order of your Honor in the premises. If they 
should continue to refuse to proceed, and your Honor should not compel 
them, there is, as we think, irreparable mischief resulting to the great detri- 
ment of the whole American people." 



520 PRESIDENT OF COTTON EXPOSITION. 

The attention of the whole country was directed to this 
strange trial, in which the chief magistracy of the Re- 
public pivoted upon the fair vote and the just count of 
this little State of Florida ; and the central figure was 
our strong clear-headed Georgian, who thus bore upon 
his shoulders the cause of a nation. 

Notwithstanding all the effort that was made by Gov- 
ernor Brown and the other distinguished gentlemen act- 
ing together, and the clear demonstration of the right, 
the two Republican members of the returning board to 
whom the issue was referred, having a majority, outvoted 
the single Democrat and gave the result in favor of the 
Hayes electors while every one knew the Tilden electors 
had won the election. 

Through the long years of the decade from 1870 to 
1880, Governor Brown pursued the even tenor of his 
way, steadily correcting political misconception of his 
course upon reconstruction, by his life of consistent purity 
and integrity; and impressing upon the great public heart 
the sincerity of his motives, and the courage of his con- 
duct. More than this, there began to grow an all-pervad- 
ing desire to utilize for the public service the phenomenal 
abilities of this powerful statesman. The public appreci- 
ation of him manifested itself in spontaneously calling 
him to lead all great movements of a practical character. 
He has been for years and is still the president of the 
board of education of the city of Atlanta, that governs 
the finest free school system in the South. He was 
elected the first president of the International Cotton Ex- 
position, and finally resigned the position on account of 
pressure of other matters, to the regret of the Exposition 
directors. In May, 1880, General John B. Gordon, 
United States senator from Georgia, resigned his high 



SENATOE GORDON'S EESIGNATION. 521 

place to which he had just been re-elected for a second 
term of six years. He had been desiring to leave public 
life with its meager emoluments, and push his private fort- 
unes. He was tendered a valuable opening in a railroad 
enterprise in Oregon, which he was compelled to accept 
immediately. He resigned from the Senate therefore in 
obedience to the necessity, though the session was in a 
few weeks of its end. He privately notified Governor 
Colquitt of his purpose, and had some correspondence by 
letter and telegraph in regard to the matter, the object 
of which on the part of Governor Colquitt was to dissuade 
General Gordon from the resignation. This proved un- 
availing, and Governor Colquitt, gave an earnest reflection 
to the choice of a proper person to appoint in his place. 
In this delicate duty the Governor gave a thoughtful con- 
sideration to the public interest and especially to the ad- 
vancement of a correct public sentiment in connection 
with the relations of the sections. Realizino- that the 
cause of constitutional government had suffered from the 
prevailing misapprehensions North as to Southern opinion 
affected by the late civil war, Governor Colquitt deemed 
that an earnest and practical effort should be made by 
Southern leaders and men in authority to give such a di- 
rection to affairs as would restore the normal relations 
between the once-divided sections. 

This question was so closely connected with the mate- 
rial prosperity of the South, with the very scheme of our 
society, the security of property and the supremacy of cor- 
rect political principles, that in the thoughtful judgment 
of our wisest men it was necessary to subserve this end. 
Governor Colquitt deemed that the appointment of such 
a man as Governor Brown, who had differed with the pre- 
vailing Southern policy on reconstruction, yet who was 



622 TENDEEED THE SENATOESHIP. 

in hearty accord with Southern sentiment now, would be on 
the line of a liberal policy that would have its beneficial 
effect. Governor Brown was the most illustrious expo- 
nent of that class of public men who bravely incurred 
public odium for the public welfare ; and his appointment 
by a representative Democratic Southern Administration 
would be the most practical demonstration that the j)reju- 
dices of sectional strife were allayed. 

Superadded to this statesmanlike consideration, it was 
conceded that Governor Brown possessed pre-eminent 
abihty for the distinguished trust ; of all the men in the 
State no one was more fitted by capacity, experience, 
reputation, wealth and service for being United States 
senator. Even his opponents admitted his superlative 
qualifications for the place. 

But this was, not all. There were urgent reasons of 
domestic State policy at that time for such an appoint- 
ment. The supremacy and unity of the Democratic party 
were seriously threatened by a growing spirit of independ- 
entism, that had captured two of the white congressional 
districts, and was menacing others. The hardy yeomanry 
of the mountains were the men most disaffected, and they 
were friends to Governor Brown and to be conciliated by 
his appointment. 

Under these most potential inducements Governor Col- 
quitt tendered the trust to Governor Brown. It was 
necessary to have Georgia represented for the brief re- 
mainder of the session. Governor Brown had a lengthy 
conference with Governor Colquitt, in which the whole 
matter was fully discussed, and the responsibility pressed 
upon him, but he declined the trust, stating that he could 
not accept it. Governor Colquitt urged him to consider it 
and so the tender was held in abeyance. Governor 



- . POLITICAL TURMOIL. 523 

Brown went to Nashville, and while he was there, Gen- 
eral Gordon's resignation was made final, and Governor 
Colquitt telegraphed him his appointment, and urgently 
pressed him not to decline, and Governor Brown sent 
back by telegraph his acceptance. 

The publication of the matter was the signal for an 
almost unparalleled public agitation. The enemies of the 
three gentlemen, Governor Colquitt, Governor Brown and 
Senator Gordon, seized promptly upon the incident to 
make an assault upon the three that intended their politi- 
cal annihilation. The most absurd and groundless charges 
were made against them. In view of the facts, the storm 
of crimination that raged was a literal tempest in a teapot. 
It was the only time in Governor Colquitt's eventful ad- 
ministration that he felt distrust of public opinion. The 
howl was so furious and the misrepresentation so impla- 
cable, that he feared for once that his opponents would 
succeed in poisoning public sentiment. In the counties 
of Pike and Muscogee public meetings were held and the 
matter denounced. Ridiculous accusations flooded the 
State of a trade in which it was boldly and distinctly 
affirmed that General Gordon as the price of resigning 
was to get the presidency of the State Road, for which 
Governor Brown w^as to be made senator, while by this 
bargain Governor Colquitt obtained the powerful support 
of Governor Brown in his future struo-o-les. 

It would be impossible to conceive a sillier suspicion. 
The very character of these gentlemen should have pro- 
tected them from even an intimation that they could be 
capable of a bargain over a high public trust. The accu- 
sation was falsified by every specification of the indict- 
ment itself. General Gordon was not made president of 
the State Road. Governor Brown was already a sup- 



524 BEOWN AS SENATOR. 

porter of Governor Colquitt. Governor Colquitt tried 
hard to induce General Gordon not to resign, and surprised 
General Gordon as much as any one else by his choice- 
Looking back at the storm in the cool light of after days, 
the flurry has the aspect of the farcical, and men wonder 
that such a fuss could be made for so long a time on so 
flimsy a basis. The incident illustrates what violent freaks 
mark the current of politics. 

Senator Brown was sworn in under his appointment 
as United States senator on the 26th day of May, 1880, 
and the adjournment of Congress took place on the 16th 
of June. His senatorial service lasted three weeks only, 
but he became in the short time an admitted leader 
in the illustrious body, requiring no novitiate, but at 
once overstepping all probation and experience in this 
greatest deliberative assembly of the country, and assum- 
ing a foremost place. It was a daring intellectual en- 
deavor, but it demonstrated the marvellous adaptability 
of his uncommon brain power. His long training in im- 
portant public affairs, both as legislator and executive, 
had fitted him for any arena of statesmanship. The way 
in which he impressed himself upon national legislation 
and the public thought in his three weeks of senatorial 
duty was a conclusive vindication of Governor Colquitt's 
wisdom in the appointment. 

Senator Brown delivered three speeches in this time 
that placed him among the recognized leaders of debate. 
They were peculiarly seasonable efforts, and marked by 
that blending of boldness and practicality that character- 
ize the public utterances of this gentleman, and that 
always command the popular consideration, making his 
influence so potential. 

The leading speech was made on the 12th of June, 



A POWERFUL SPEECH. 525 

1880, npon the Mexican pension bill. He wove into this 
effort the most effective rebuke that has been given since 
the war, to what has been popularly called the " bloody 
shirt" business of ingeniously making war prejudices 
against the South the weapon of political victory by the 
Republican party. An amendment to exclude Confeder- 
ate soldiers from Mexican or Indian war pensions afforded 
the ready senator the opportunity which he- used with 
masterly tact. Frequently before in debate our Southern 
members in Congress had tried to quiet this troublesome 
issue, but had as a general thing made matters worse 
under the adroit retorts of the Republican debaters. But 
Senator Brown met the issue successfully, and it was a rare 
controversial triumph, as well as turning the tables in a 
contest that had gone uniformly against us of the South. 
Senator Brown argued against excluding the Southern 
soldiers, and was subjected to a volley of the customary 
and hitherto effective queries by such men as Senators 
Conkling, Blaine, Kirkwood, Teller and Ingalls, who kept 
the debate lively with thrusts about disunion and seces- 
sion. Senator Brown responded with prompt felicity, 
retorting in every case in such a manner as to silence his 
questioner and leaving the advantage unanswerably with 
him. He not only carried his point, but he demonstrated 
his ability to cope in hand to hand discussion and van- 
quish the strongest debaters of the Senate, and he took 
immediate rank, both over the country and in the Senate, 
among the leaders of the body, the most intellectual and 
influential Senators of long experience. This and other 
speeches of Senator Brown are given in full in the appen- 
dix of this volume. 

Another speech made at this session was in advocacy 
of enlarging the appropriations to our Southern harbors. 



526 THE CENSUS EREOR. 

It is always a difficult thing to increase appropriations 
over the report of the committee. His practical speech 
on this subject obtained an additional $10,000 for Bruns- 
wick. He made a strong effort to get $65,000 more for 
Savannah, and nearly succeeded. Many senators of 
both political parties, Mr. Blaine, Voorhees, Bayard, 
Thurman, Davis and Vance commended in warm terms 
the ability of his effort, while Senator Blaine put his 
praise in a humorous expression that was heartily appre- 
ciated for its witty good feeling — he had never heard 
so fine a speech from so young a senator. 

A very important service of his, so far as Georgia was 
concerned, was the detection and defeat of a serious pro- 
vision in the census bill that if passed would have oper- 
ated to deprive Georgia of the number of representatives 
in Congress to which she was entitled upon the basis of 
population. Georgia has a law that disqualifies a man 
from voting who has not paid his taxes, and there were 
thousands of such disqualified voters in the State when 
the census was taken. The objectionable provision re- 
quired the census enumerators to report such voters and 
deduct them from the number of people that were to be 
counted in apportioning representation in Congress. 
Georgia under this unjust rule would have lost at least 
one representative to which her inhabitants entitled her ; 
Governor Brown saw and stopped this injustice. 

Senator Brown's phenomenal service in his little three 
weeks' term conclusively established his fitness for the 
great trust that had been unsolicitedly tendered him by 
Governor Colquitt. This appointment was made the 
main issue in the gubernatorial campaign, and it can be 
readily understood that Senator Brown threw himself 
into this heated contest with all the fervor of his deter- 



CONTEST FOR SENATOR. 527 

mined nature, aided by all of his marvellous and expe- 
rienced skill. It was understood to be Brown, Gordon 
and Colquitt against the field. The issue was clearly 
defined. There never was in our State politics a sharper 
contest. Usually the convention settles conflicts in the 
party. In this case the convention merely defined the 
antagonism in the party organization the more clearly, 
and the election was an aggressive continuation of the 
undetermined struggle. In the convention it was any- 
body to beat Colquitt, and in the election the opposition 
rallied to Mr. Thomas N. Norwood. After the most 
animated campaign in half a century. Governor Col- 
quitt, aided by Senator Brown, was re-elected by almost 
a two-thirds majority. 

But in the gubernatorial campaign was blended an 
issue vital to Senator Brown. His appointment as 
United States Senator by Governor Colquitt unless rati- 
fied by the people was an empty compliment, so far as 
the public will was concerned. The same election that 
decided who was to be governor was also to choose a 
Legislature that had the selection of a successor to Sena- 
tor Brown. His own election, therefore, as a sequence 
to his appointment was at stake. There were peculiar 
considerations involved in this contest. Years before 
Senator Brown had met the only political defeat of his 
life under circumstances of unparalleled public miscon- 
ception of his motives and conduct, in a conflict for this 
very trust. Certainly a less positive and stern-willed per- 
son than he would have felt the inspiration of reversing 
that defeat. But with his combative nature and intense 
individuality the occasion was perhaps the supreme crisis 
of his life, involving a concentration of all vital issues, 
concerning alike the compensation of unmerited obloquy 



528 GENERAL A. E. LAWTOK 

and the redemption of his career from the most cruel in- 
justice a public man ever suffered. His and Governor 
Colquitt's opponents made his appointment and election 
the main issue of the campaign. Senator Brown accepted 
it joyfully, and bent his powerful energies and great 
abilities to the contest. Had the issue not have been 
tendered him, he would have offered it. He was re- 
solved to have a crucial test of public sentiment upon 
his course, under the light of reason and justice. 

His opponent in this race was General Alexander R. 
Lawton, a worthy rival in every respect, a gentleman of 
unblemished character and ackowledged abilities. He 
had held many important positions involving responsible 
public trusts. He was State senator in 1859, president 
of the State Democratic convention of 1860, colonel of 
the first regiment of Georgia volunteers at the beginning 
of the war, and conducted the seizure of Fort Pulaski 
under Governor Brown's orders, brigadier-general in the 
Confederate army, quartermaster-general of the Confed- 
erate Government, elector for Tilden and Hendricks and 
president of the electoral college, member of the consti- 
tutional convention of 1877, delegate to the National 
Democratic convention in Cincinnati in 1880, and chair- 
man of the Georgia delegation. In all of these trusts 
he had sustained himself so as to carry the growing 
confidence and respect of the people. Be came from a 
section of Georgia, too, that had strong claims for a sena- 
tor on account of its wealth and intelligence. General 
Lawton took part actively in the canvass for Governor, 
making several strong speeches against Governor Col- 
quitt's re-election. He was presented to the State in com- 
plimentary terms as the candidate of Chatham county 
for the United States Senate. 



A PIVOTAL- OCCASION. 529 

The election resulted in the overwhelming success of 
Governor Colquitt, and the choice of a large majority of 
members of the Legislature favorable to Governor Brown 
for senator. Notwithstanding this fact, the canvass for 
senator still continued. General Lawton wrote a letter 
on the subject. Governor Brown, on the night before 
the election, made a public address in De Gives' Opera 
House. The building was packed from pit to dome with 
ladies, and gentlemen and the entire General Assembly. 
The desire to hear this citizen was eager and universal. 
Hundreds were unable to gain admission to the building. 
General Lawton himself stood in the gallery, listening to 
his powerful opponent. It was such an occasion as occurs 
in the lives of few men. It was the turning-point of a 
rare career, the pivot of a life whose eventfulness has had 
few parallels. It was less the great office that seemed in 
his grasp, for he was too much used to great trusts, and 
of too philosophical a temperament to experience undue 
elation at the honor, than it was that at last the majestic 
tribunal of public opinion, after a long and cruel miscon- 
ception of his public course, was about to correct its erro- 
neous verdict and redeem its injustice. He had suffered 
as few do. There had been a crucifixion by public senti- 
ment such as it is rare for any man to survive, much less 
to conquer. He had lived to witness the complete re- 
demption of his name and fame. There clustered around 
his slender figure and calm face, with its gray beard that 
attested the meridian of life past, memories vital with 
momentous history ; and there loomed before him a vista 
of illustrious public usefulness and private distinction, 
hinging upon this pivotal occasion. Well might the 
great popular heart throb in unison with the dramatic 
suggestions of this occurrence and this historic figure. 

34 



530 LEE AND JACKSON. 

The people as well as he felt the lesson of the crisis, and 
gave a hearty sympathy in the wonderful triumph. 

His speech was the best of his life. It was an effort 
of supreme audacity and power. It was exceedingly 
calm, philosophical, and argumentative, and yet it was 
the most daring and absolute adhesion to the logic of his 
political conduct. There was no trimming in it, no cohrt- 
ino- favor, no apologies for the past, no concession to 
prejudice or sentiment; but instead an unflinching justi- 
fication of motive and act, a resolute grounding of him- 
self, as it were, upon the integrity and wisdom of his past, 
and a fearless enunciation of what he conceived to be 
the liberal statesmanship for the Southern future. A 
more timid man would have hesitated as a piece of politic 
diplomacy at his declaration of views so far in advance 
of public sentiment. The vote had yet to be taken, and 
the voters were before him. He never faltered in the 
candid statement of progressive ideas far beyond the 
present. He planted himself upon his convictions, and 
spoke the truth as he saw it, regardless of consequences. 

There were two striking episodes in his speech that 
impressed the public with tremendous effect, and carried 
a magical weight. When he read the letter from General 
Robert E. Lee, written in 1867 contemporaneously with 
his own utterances, counselling the same acquiescence in 
reconstruction that he had done, for the same reasons, 
the effect upon the audience was indescribable. Such 
an indorsement from such a source almost had the start- 
lino- authority of a miracle. Again, at the conclusion of 
his speech, a telegram was handed to him from General 
Henry R. Jackson, bearing testimony to the fact that 
before he took his unpopular position upon reconstruc- 
tion they had conversed upon the subject, and Governor 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 5.31 

Brown had communicated to him his disinterested motive 
for the public good, and his voluntary acceptance of pop- 
ular obloquy in the furtherance of his patriotic mission. 
It was a brace of peerless witnesses that he thus pre- 
sented in proof of his sincerity and honor. The dead and 
the living in their most chivalrous types were offered in 
evidence of an integrity and patriotism that had been so 
harshly misjudged. The two blended a singularly poten- 
tial vindication, — the great and revered Lee, of his pol- 
icy ; the stainless and truthful Jackson, of his integrity. 
No man dare doubt the wise patriotism of the one or the 
crystal truth of the other. These spontaneous and im- 
pregnable confirmations of Governor Brown came and 
wrought their irresistible spell of conviction, and de- 
stroyed the last possibility of denial, setting forever at 
rest the long existing and merciless shadow upon a good 
man's fame and usefulness. 

This extraordinary and powerful speech is given in 
full, as it was delivered on the night of the fifteenth day 
of November, 1880. 

'^Gentlemen of the General Assembly, Ladies and Gentlemen: — I appear 
before you as a candidate for the high office of United States senator from 
our proud old Commonwealth. I had not intended to make any public 
addvess pending this canvass. But as my honorable opponent, General. 
Lawton, lias thought proper to appear before you and deliver a lengthy 
address, the burden of which has been an assault upon my political cha,racter 
and record, I trust you will agree with me that it is proper that I should be- 
heard in reply. 

" When I learned that my opponent intended to address you, I naturally, 
came to the conclusion that he would lay down some platform, or announce 
some great line of policy that he intended to pursue for the promotion of 
the best interests of the State and of the whole country, if he should be 
called to the high position to which he aspires. But I was greatly disap- 
pointed when I read a synopsis of his speech, to find that he had not thought 
it necessary to favor us with his platform, or an outline of the policy in- 
tended to be pursued by him. Instead of this, he turns back to the past, 



532 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

and drags from their grave the carcasses of the dead issues which divided 
and embittered our people in years gone by. And he seeks your suffrage 
not upon anything that he promises in the future. Indeed, I was forced to 
the conclusion, after learning the points in his speech, that he sought to rise 
by his assaults upon my record rathfn- than upon his own merits. 

"And just liere permit me to say, that, while I greatly regret the necessity 
of recurring to these old, dead issues, I do not shrink from a comparison of 
records with General Lawton. I am not afraid to discuss the issues involved 
in the reconstruction period, as I think it is easy to demonstrate that the 
advice I then gave, if it had been heeded, and the course I then took, if it 
had been followed, would have been the best for Georgia and the whole 
South; still, I know there are honest differences of opinion upon this ques- 
tion. And I know that able and patriotic statesmen took a different view 
of it at the time ; and the questions were discussed earnestly, ably, aiid in 
some instances bitterly. Much was said on each side that it were better it 
had not been said. It was a time of passion and prejudice, when the worst 
feelings of our nature were aroused and brought into active play. We had 
just lost our cause. From being a proud and wealthy people, we had been 
reduced to poverty. Every family had lost a father, a brother, a husband, 
or a friend. Our conquerors had dictated terms that seemed to us to be 
hard and even unreasonable. And probably the most unpalatable part of 
the whole batch of measures was the provision in the fourteenth constitu- 
tional amendment that disfranchised our leaders from holding office. Labor- 
ing under these provoking circumstances, and in the midst of this high 
excitement, it was not strange that we had divisions, and that bitterness and 
even vituperation were brought into the campaign. But this period of bit- 
terness has passed; the public mind has been quieted ; our passions have 
subsided; we have gone actively to work; we have learned lessons of econ- 
omy ; we have entered again upon a state of prosperity ; and patriotic men 
on both sides had hoped that the dead issues would remain buried out of 
sight, and that we should no longer be divided or disturbed by them. The 
times now seem to require that all patriotic citizens of Georgia and the 
South should stand together, hand in hand, and labor earnestly and faith- 
fully to promote union, harmony, and the public good. 

" What pvrblic service, then, could my honorable opponent think he was 
rendering to the country by tearing the scabs off the healing wounds and 
seeking again to arouse the bitter prejudices and passions of twelve years 
ago? Why did he not think proper to do this at any time within the last 
five or six years, when he was not a candidate for United States senator? 
Why did he wait until he made up his mind to enter the lists as a competi- 
tor for this distinguished position before he opened his batteries upon those 
who differed with him during the reconstruction period ? Have we not had 
enough bitterness? Is it for the public good that strife and wrangling 
should continue perpetually ? Cannot my opponent and those with whom 



GOV. BEOWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 533 

he acts realize the fact that we live in a new era, tliat war has produced 
almost a revolution in our labor system and lias engrafted new provisions on 
the political system? Is it impossible for him to conform to the present 
system under which we live, and to unite with those who labor to make the 
best out of it in future ? 

"Why does my opponent arraign me for infidelity to Georgia and the 
South because I difi'ered with him and the school of politicians to which he 
belongs on the reconstruction question and acted with the reconstruction 
party? Is a man a traitor for not going with the party he has formerly 
acted with, if that party abandon the platform it has always stood upon, 
plants itself upon a new platform which his judgment tells him is impracti- 
cable and impossible to be carried into execution ? 

" The platform of the Democratic party, so called in 1868, was not the 
platform upon which that party stood prior to that time. Take General 
Blair's Broadhead letter, which secured his nomination to the office of vice- 
president, and the platform which together declared the reconstruction acts 
revolutionary, unconstitutional, null and void; and that it was the duty of 
the President of the United States to so declare them, and to refuse to exe- 
cute them, and to disband the governments established in the Southern 
States under the reconstruction acts by force. This would have been another 
revolution, ending in the further effusion of blood. There was no possible 
chance of success on that platform. No principle of Democracy required me 
to stand upon it. Democrats and the former opponents of Democracy divided 
upon it according to their own judgment. I refused to stand upon it because 
I knew it could result in no good, and must, if carried out to its legitimate 
results, end in revolution and blood. Other patriotic statesmen thought 
they saw in it a mode of escape from the awkward dilemma in which we 
were placed ; and with as much honesty of purpose as I claim for myself 
they espoused the cause of opposition to it earnestly and actively. Were 
they traitors to the old Democratic platform because they planted the party 
upon a new platform that turned out not practicable ? They were honest ; 
they were earnest ; they were patriotic. Was I a traitor, then, because I 
refused to stand upon a platform that I believed would result in utter failure 
and do harm ? Did I go over to the enemy, as my opponent charges, wlien 
I acted with the party that sustained the reconstruction measures? If so, 
the whole Democratic party and the whole people of the South have since 
gone over to the enemy, with the exception of a few Bourbons who can never 
accept the situation. When Messrs. Stephens and Toombs and other great 
Whig leaders of the South abandoned the Whig party, and aided in disband- 
ing it, and came over to the old Democratic party, were they traitors because 
they acted with the Democracy whom they had so long fought? Did we 
treat them as such and refuse to give them office? And would it be consid- 
ered a proper issue in this campaign, for me to take up their records, and 
discuss what might appear to be seeming inconsistencies in their course in 



534 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

that regard? What would it have to do with the present or the future wel- 
fare of the country? Are we to pursue each other with relentless fury on 
account of past differences and never unite for the public good? In 1860 
some of us were ardent secessionists; others were Union men: shall we 
declare perpetual war against one another because we differed twenty years 
ago? Shall a Union man now say the secessionist was a traitor because he 
left the Union ranks and went with the secessionists? Or shall a seces- 
sionist say that a Union man is a traitor because he acted with the Union 
party and did not go with the secessionists ? If an original Union man were 
now a candidate for senator, wo\ild it be proper for me as an original seces- 
sionist to make war upon him, and arraign liim upon his record, and place 
my claim to election to the United States senate upon the inconsistencies of 
that record? It would be as just as the war that my opponent makes 
upon m.e. 

" But he refers to my honored colleague in the Senate, and says that I said 
Mr. Hill is the grandest orator in the Senate. I did say so, and I here 
repeat it. But he says that Hill almost exhausted that oratory in his denun- 
ciation of me during the reconstruction campaign. That may be true. Mr. 
Hill is an ardent, earnest, patriotic man. He believed he was right. He 
hoped that we might get rid of the reconstruction measures through the 
agency of the Democratic party ; and though he had never been a Democrat 
in his life, he came with the Democrats, and acte'd with them, and was one 
of their ablest leaders in Georgia. Was he a traitor to the old Whig or 
American party, because he came over to the Democracy on that occasion, 
and acted with tliein in opposition to the reconstruction measures? Clearly 
not. But there is this striking difference between Mr. Hill and my opponent: 
Two yeais later Mr. Hill saw that the hopes of getting rid of the reconstruc- 
tion measures, for whicli he had so earnestly and honestly labored, was delu- 
sive; and he had tiie magnanimity and the honesty to come out and publish 
his views to tlie world, and advise acquiescence and the recognition of the 
rights of the colored race. 

," And from that day to this Mr. Hill has advised peace and harmony. He 
has never gone back and torn open the old wounds, nor sought to do it, as 
my opponent now seeks to do. He fought the reconstruction measures as 
long as he saw any chance to succeed, and when there was no hope of suc- 
cess he abandoned the platform, as did the Democratic party, and planted 
himself upon the reconstruction measures. Was he a traitor to the Demo- 
cratic party, when, iu 1870, he advised the acceptance of the reconstruction 
measures and the recognition of the rights of the colored race ? And must 
he in future be arraigned for this patriotic act? If not, how was I a traitor 
for doing the same thing two yeurs sooner? 

" If tlie attack made upon me by my opponent is just, then he is the proper 
subj'ct of arraignment. Mr. Hill is able to recognize an accomplished fact, 
and hei is a man of mould large enough to advise the people to bury the 



GOV. BROWN'S GEEAT SPEECH OF 1880. 535 

bitterness of the past, and to act in harmony upon the reconstruction plat- 
form in future. In this lie is ten years ahead of General Lawton. 

"In his letter of 1870, December 8th, two years before the Democratic 
party had abandoned the platform of 1868, Mr. Hill says: 'I have been 
driven to the conclusion that these three amendments are in fact, and will be 
held in law, fixed principles of the Constitution, as binding upon the States 
and people as the original provisions of that instrument. .... It is the duty 
of every good citizen to abide by and obey the Constitution and laws as they 
exist, precisely as if he had co-operated in establishing and enacting them.' 
Again he says: ' I respectfully suggest that the time has arrived when duty 
does not require nor interest seek a continuance of the divisions on the prin- 
ciples and events which have led to our present condition.' 

"And in his speech in Atlanta, in 1872, he says: ' I confess before this 
audience to-niglit, that while my heart has ever been right, while I have ever 
advocated that which I believed to be true at the time, yet in the mid>t of 
party contest I have often indulged in personal allusions and personal depre- 
ciations, which I regret and would gladly recall.' Again he says, in refer- 
ence to the notes on the situation: 'There are some personal allusions of a 
very severe character which I regret and would recall.' Again he adds: 'I 
am free to say that I am in favor of universal political amnesty, state and 
federal.' How striking the contrast between these utterances of the great 
orator, and the intolerant course of my opponent! 

"AVheu did my honorable opponent give this good advice? For twelve 
years has he nursed his wrath, and still abates nothing of his animosity 
against those who differ with him. 

"But my opponent thinks we should not have accepted so early, while the 
graves of our dead heroes were yet fresh. What length of time was it neces- 
sary to give for the grass to spread over the graves of our lamented heroes 
who fell in our glorious cause, before we could accept the reconstruction 
measures without disrespect to them ? 

"As the Deuiocracy has been planted upon the reconstruction platform 
ever since 1872, my opponent must admit that it was no disrespect to their 
memories to accept those measures in 1872. Why did he not tell us the 
exact time between 1868 and 1872 when it ceased to be disrespectful to them 
for us to acquiesce in the inevitable? His views and mine of the reverence 
and respect we owe to their memories may be widely different. I feel that 
that respect and that reverence are due them from us while we live, and 
from our posterity after us. I had two brothers who fell during that 
struggle, one of them while leading his regiment in the charge upon a Union 
battery almost iu sight of where I now stand. 

" Shall 1 cease to respect their memories, or do I dishonor them because I 
accept the terms dictated by our conqueror after they have fallen ? General 
Lawton may think that we could cease to pay reverence to the memories of 
our heroes after 1872. I say that respect and that reverence should be per- 



536 GOV. BKOWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

petual in the future. If so, taking his premises and carrying them out to 
their logical sequence, we must forever fight the reconstruction measures or 
we will dishonor them. 

"But I was not alone in the advice I gave or the opinion I entertained as 
to the propriety of accepting the reconstruction measures. What was that 
advice ? It was substantially that the conquerors had dictated the terms, 
and that we were obliged to accept them; that the conventions mentioned 
in the Sherman bill must be held; that our people were placed in a position 
where they had no power whatever to control that question. And I advised 
them to acquiesce ; to go to the polls and vote for the best men who were 
eligible; that they might go to the convention and make us the best consti- 
tution we could get, as we might be obliged to live under it for years to 
come. I also recommended acquiescence in the action of the convention of 
our State, and advised our people against divisions and to a prompt accejjt- 
ance of the terms dictated by our conqueror. This was the only way to get 
representation back into Congress and to lift the hand of the conqueror from 
us. All remember very well that this was the substance of my advice. 

"Now I desire to read here a letter from a distinguished gentleman, to 
show that others whose opinions were entitled to respect entertained the 
same views and gave like advice. As I consider the letter an important one, 
I beg your careful attention while I read it. It is as follows : 

" ^ My dear Major: I have read with the attention the subject demanded 
the article enclosed in your letter of the 23d ulr. I think there can be no 
doubt in the minds of those who reflect, that conventions must be held in 
the Southern States under the Sherman bill, that the people are placed in a 
position where no choice in the matter is left them, and it is the duty of all 
who may be entitled to vote to attend the polls and endeavor to elect the 
best available men to represent them and act for the interests of their States. 
The division of the people into parties is greatly to be reprehended, and 
ought to be avoided by the willingness on the part of everyone to yield 
minor points, in order to secure those which are essential to the general 
welfare. Wisdom dictates that the decision of the conventions should be 
cheerfully submitted to by the citizens of each State, who should unite in 
carrying out its decrees in good faith and kind feeling.' " 

[At this point some one in the audience cried out, " That's Joe Brown's 
talk! " The speaker replied, "It is very much like it; just the same in sub- 
stance, though I did not write it." He then resumed the reading of the 
letter, as follows :] 

" ' As I am relieved from the necessity of directing how to act, I think it 
is fair to leave to those who have to bear the responsibility the decision of 
the questions involved, without embarrassing them with the opinions of 
those who do not feel this responsibility. Under these circumstances, and 
for reasons which I am sure you will understand, I have great reluctance to 
obtrude my opinions upon the public, and must therefore request that you 



GOV. BEOWN'S GKEAT SPEECH OF 1880. 537 

will not publish my letter, which has been written out of my kind regard for 
yourself.' 

" This letter," said the speaker, " is dated Lexington, Va., April 3, 1867, 
less than one month after the date of my letter advising acquiescence in tlie 
reconstruction measures. It was dictated by the brain and penned by the 
hand of that immortal hero, Robert E. Lee! I hold the original now in my 
hand, in the handwriting of the old hero himself." 

[At this point the demonstrations of applause were overwhelming, and 
bouquets of flowers were thrown from every part of the audience to the 
stage and showered down upon Governor Brown with a profusion that we 
have seldom witnessed. After bowing and returning his thanks to the ladies, 
he continued as follows :] 

"I have not given the name of the gentleman to whom the letter is 
addressed, as he does not at present desire his name made public. He is an 
able man ; was a gallant Confederate officer, who did valiant service under 
the very eye of General Lee himself, and had the confidence of that great 
man to the fullest extent. As General Lee was a military chieftain then 
retired, and had not figured as a statesman, the reasons ai-e very obvious 
why he should not desire to give advice to the public, unless it was asked 
for in some authoritative way. It was but natural, therefore, that he should 
have requested that the letter be not published. But as more than thirteen 
years have passed since the letter was written, and as time has demonstrated 
the wisdom of the advice given by General Lee, and he has long since de- 
parted this life, certainly no injustice can be done to liis memory by giving 
to the public the wise and noble sentiments then expressed by him. Another 
reason why it should be published is, that it shows that the old hero was of 
good judg-MENT." [This brought down the house with great applause.] 

"But my opponent says that the State of Georgia, by resisting my policy 
and the reconstruction measures, got out fi-om under the heel of the op- 
pressor sooner than South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana who took my 
advice. This is a very extraordinary statement. What was my advice? It 
was the same given by General Lee : that the white people of Georgia and 
the South accept the reconstruction measures at once; that they all go to 
the ballot-box and vote for delegates to the convention which was to make 
the Constitution under which they and their children must live ; and that 
they try to get as good a Constitution as possible, and get their representa- 
tives bnck into Congress in both branches at the earliest day possible. What 
was the advice of General Lawton on that occasion ? It was that the white 
people of the South fold their arms in dignified silence and refuse to take 
anj'^ part whatever in the election to be held for members of the convention 
to form a Constitution under which they must live for years to come, but to 
give that up to the negroes, the carpet-baggers, and the scalawags. South 
Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana adopted his advice. The white people 
folded their arms in great dignity, and said, ' We will touch not, taste not, 



538 GOV. BEOWN'S GEEAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

handle not the unclean thing.' They refused to go to the polls, and they 
gave up their conventions entirely into the hands of the classes above men- 
tioned. What was the result ? The negroes and the carpet-baggers framed 
their constitutions; tied them hand and foot; filled their legislative halls 
with majorities of ignorant colored men, and crowded their jury boxes with 
ignorance; and the white people labored under this curse till the beginning 
of the year 1877. For nearly ten years were they passing through this ter- 
rible ordeal. Not so in Georgia. It was estimated at the time that some 
thirty thousand white men in Georgia took the advice given by those of us 
who accepted the reconstruction measures, and went to the polls and voted 
for good men as delegates to the convention. AVe sent to the conveution the 
lamented Judge Parrott, who presided over it, and who was a most valuable 
power in securing a good Constitution. The people also elected as members 
of that convention. Dr. Miller, Colonel Trammell, Judge McKay, James D. 
Waddell, Colonel Thomas P. Saffold, of Morgan ; Albert Foster, the honored 
father of the honorable representative from Morgan county in this assembly; 
Madison Bell, of Banks; Judge Bigby, of Coweta, now United States district 
attorney; Colonel Marler, since solicitor-general of the western circuit; Mr. 
Dews, of Baker, who has since been a member of the Legislature ; Mr. Field, 
of Murray, who has filled the same place; Mr. Ford, of Floyd; Dr. Foster, 
of Paulding; Mr. McWhorter, of Green; the Hon. David Irwin, of Cobb; 
the Hon. A. W. Ilolcomb, of Milton ; the Hon. Wesley Shropshire, of Chat- 
tooga; the Hon. John H. Flynn, of this city; the Hon. Amos T. Akerman, 
who, though a Northern man, has spent the most of his life in Georgia, and 
who also rendered valuable services in the convention. Other native white 
men were elected who had devoted their lives to the best interests of Georgia. 
These men inside, with the assistance of some of us outside, notwithstanding 
the great majority of radical men in the convention, secured for the people 
of Georgia a constitution under which they were soon restored to the line 
of prosperity. The intelligence of Georgia soon iiad control of the Legis- 
lature, her courts, and her juries. The world knows the result. We were 
through with the reconstruction period much sooner than any one of the 
States above mentioned, who rejected my advice and took the advice of my 
opponent. And to-day, while the credit of those States in the market is 
unfortunately at a low point, the credit of Georgia stands as high in tlie 
market as any State's' in the Union, She floats without difficulty a four per 
cent, bond when she needs money to meet her engagements. 

"On the contrary, if South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana had followed 
my advice in 1868, and sent such of their white leaders as were not disfran- 
chised as delegates to their conventions, they would have secured constitu- 
tions which would have restored them to Democratic rule within four years. 
And in 1876, instead of having radical returning boards at their command 
to count out Mr. Tilden, who was legally elected president, they would have 
elected Democratic electors, and there would have been no question about 
* 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 539 

the right of the Democratic candidate to his seat in the presidential chair; 
and we would now have passed through four years of Democratic rule, 
whereas we are just entering upon four more years of Republican rule. 
Judge ye, whether the advice of my opponent as taken by these States was 
better than mine. 

"But my opponent says, in substance, if I could not agree with him and 
those with whom he acted in 1868, I should not have acted with the recon- 
struction party ; but I should have folded my arms in silence and waited 
until they had made the experiment. No, 1 could not have done this prop- 
erly. The people of Georgia had lionoi'ed me; they had raised me from an 
humble position and placed me at the helm of state. They had stood by me 
during all the dark periods through which we had passed. I iiad reached a 
point, at the end of the struggle, where I was out of oflBce, and I was a pri- 
vate citizen only; and if I had been simply selfish in my views, I might 
have folded my arms and stood still and given no advice, and retained my 
popularity'. But I did not think I could do this and act in good faith. All 
that I was, and all that I am, I owe to Georgia; and when her citizens 
called on me for advice in that critical period, though but a private citizen, 
I felt that it was my bounden duty to give it. I knew very well the respon- 
sibility which I incurred. I thought it was possible they might follow my 
advice and save themselves great trouble and great suffering. But I feared 
also at the time that the probabilities were that passion and prejudice were 
running too high for reason to resume her sway. Hence I stated to confi- 
dential friends my motives in taking the position I did, that it was to try 
to save Georgia from vei'y great suffering, into which I feared she was about 
to be precipitated; and that, if our people failed to take my advice, from 
having been one of the most popular men in the State, I should become one 
of the most unpopular from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. With this 
great hazard fully in view, forgetful of self-interest, I raised the note of 
warning, and gave them honestly my opinion as to the course it was best 
for them to pursue. My opponent folded his arms at the time and did 
nothing, and advised inaction. I leave it to you to say whether his censure 
is well founded or gratuitous. 

"But my opponent in substance assumes the further position, that if we 
had refused to submit to the reconstruction measures, and had all stood out 
to the last, foreign powers might have intervened under international law 
and saved us from this bitter pill. Now, with all due deference, it does seem 
to me that this idea is perfectly Utopian. When we were at the high tide of 
our success after each important victory, we had men abroad to importune 
foreign powers to recognize us even as belligerents, and they declined to do 
so because their treaty obligations to the United States did not permit them 
to recognize us as occupying any other relation than that of rebels to the 
government of the United States; and whatever sympathy they might have 
felt for us, they declined to recognize us as entitled even to belligerent rights. 



540 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

If then foreign powers would take no notice of us during the struggle when 
we were flushed with victory, was it reasonable to suppose after we had 
surrendered, and there was no hanging, no slaughter, no bloodshed, our 
president imprisoned but his life not imperilled, that they would then come 
in and intermeddle in the affairs of the United States, and say, 'You shall 
not dictate terms here that the South think are hard and unreasonable; we 
will interfere with our sword and stop it'? What sane man can for a 
moment believe that there was even the remotest probability of foreign 
intervention to save us from the evils of reconstruction? It does seem to 
me that my honorable opponent is hard run for a pretext upon which to 
base his objections to me, when he arraigns me for supporting the recon- 
struction measures on the ground that we might have looked for foreign 
intervention if we had held out. I do not at least think he would venture to 
offer such an argument before the country from the high arena of the Senate 
of the United States, to which he aspires. 

"But he makes another grave charge, that while I was an ardent original 
secessionist and did all I could to advance the cause of secession, I took 
issue during the war with President Davis on certain questions where I 
thought there were great principles involved. Doubtless he refers to the 
controversy between me and President Davis on conscription. We went 
into the contest, as I understood it, to maintain State sovereignty and 
slavery ; and I think I demonstrated during that controversy that tlie Con- 
script Act was unconstitutional and subversive of the very principles of 
State sovereignty which lay at the foundation of our political fabric. That 
discussion, however, was on questions of constitutional law and principle, 
and it was not permitted to embarrass Mr. Davis practically. I threw no 
obstacles in the way of the execution of the Conscript Acts by his officers in 
Georgia, where they showed any respect to law or the rights of the State. 
He never made a requisition upon me during the whole period of the war for 
troops of the class furnished by the other States, that I did not promptly 
respond with a larger number than he asked for. 

"And when Sherman's army invaded the soil of Georgia, I called out even 
the officers of the State and organized tiiem into regiments and battalions 
and turned them over to that glorious old hero, Joseph E. Johnston, who was in 
command of the Confederate armies, where they did efficient and valuable 
service, recognized by him in flattering terms. I carried the number up to 
nearly ten thousand of the class which was not subject to conscription, and 
for which the President had no right to call, and which was not furnished 
by the other States. After General Johnston had been unwisely removed, 
I continued them under General Hood. And when the secretary of war of 
the Confederate States made requisition upon me for them — that part of 
them report to General Hood and part of them to the commandant at 
Charleston while they were in the trenches at Atlanta defending this city, 
I refused to send them away or to turn them over on Confederate requisition. 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 541 

They belonged to the State : thoy were a class of our citizens including her 
officers and the old men up to 55 and the boys down to 16 that other States 
did not send to the field and that the President had no right under any 
law of Congress to demand of me. Nor did he demand that class by requisi- 
tion made upon the governor of any other State in the Confederacy. How 
then did I obstruct the cause of the Confederacy ? I gave it all the troops 
it called for ; al^it was entitled to, and when our own State was invaded 1 gave 
it nearly ten thousand of a class that it had no right under its own laws to 
call for. Ask General Joseph E. Johnston whether I was untrue to the Con- 
federacy. He was in command at the time, and he will tell you that I did 
all that any governor could have done under the circumstances to aid him. 

" He is reported to have said that I did more for the cause than all the 
other governors of the Confederacy combined. 

" General Lawton seems to forget, however, while attacking me on this 
point, that he attacks the great commoner, Mr. Stephens, who was vice-presi- 
dent of the Confederate States, and General Toombs, the ablest advocate of 
his election to the Senate, who fully co-operated with me in my coutrovei-sy 
with the Confederate States authorities on this question, and sustained me 
on every point. We acted in perfect harmony. Were Stephens and 
Toombs untrue to the Confederate cause? The same evidence that would 
convict me of this charge by my opponent, convicts them also. Perhaps 
this argument proves a little too much for him. 

" But it would seem reasonable to suppose that the Georgians in the army 
who met the enemy in the field of battle, and who endured all the hardships 
of the camp, were the best judges of whether their governor in his treat- 
ment to them and in his responses to the calls of the Confederacy had been 
faithful. In 1863 after my controversy with President Davis, when I was 
a candidate for the fourth time for the office of governor, the citizens of 
Georgia within legal age, who were in the army, were authorized to vote 
wherever they might be. As you will remember, the Hon. Joshua Hill, 
formerly a Union man, and the Hon. Timothy Furlow, an ardent secession- 
ist, were both put in the field against me. As the Constitution required 
that the successful candidate should have a majority over all the other can- 
didates, it was thought I would be defeated in this way, and the electi^on 
thrown into the General Assembly. And the home vote at the time would 
have come near defeating me. The stay-at-home men, those owning fifteen 
negroes, who were at home to look after their plantations, and those in the 
other pursuits of life that remained at home, voted for me by a small major- 
ity. But when the army vote came in and the ballot of the men who bore 
the musket in the front of the enemy was heard from, they placed me over 
8000 ahead of both my competitors. Did the army deem my course as untrue 
to the Confederacy? Who were better judges of the propriety of it than 
the soldiers who endured the hardships of the camp and the field ? 

" Time will not permit me to say more in reference to my course 



542 GOV. BEOWN'S GKEAT SPEECH OE 1880. 

during the war. I claim that nothing I did during that period 
conflicts in any way with my duty or present position as a Dem- 
ocrat. I never voted anything but a Democratic ticket iu my life prior to 
1868. Upon the old Democratic platform I always stood, and to its princi- 
ples I was always true. In 1868 the Democratic party did not stand upon 
its former platform, and it certainly did not stand upon its present platform. 
In 1868 it declared the reconstruction measures to be revoliitiouary, uncon- 
stitutional, null and void, for it nominated Blair upon his Broadhead letter. 
During that period I refused to stand upon that platform. I knew that 
General Grant, who had been the successful leader of the Union armies and had 
received the. sword of that immortal hero. General Lee, was entitled accord- 
ing to usage to the presidency, and he would certainly get it. lie had been 
sent by President Johnson to the South to report upon our condition, and 
had done all he could to mitigate the excitement, and reported as favorably 
as he could. He was evidently disposed to turn the warm side to the South, 
and I thought it was our best policy to agree with the adversary quickly, 
and take up the hero and support him, making no issue with him. This 
would have given us representation in Congress immediately and placed us 
upon a much higher level. And if we had acted wisely, all the probabilities 
are that General Grant, true to his original political faith, might at the 
next race have accepted the nomination from the Democracy of the Union, 
as he had been up to that time an original Democrat. My opponent is 
reported to have said in his speech that I was the only man who knew that. 
It has been on more than one occasion published that General Grant him- 
self said so, and it has never been denied by any one. He never cast any 
but p, Democratic vote prior to the time he went into the presidential chair. 
And I think my opponent is probably the only man in the country, of his 
intelligence, who did not know it. Not only was General Grant, who re>- 
ceived Lee's sword, in favor of conciliation up to that time, but it is now 
a well known fact that General Lee favored acceptance. 

" The Democrats made the experiment on the platform of 1868, and made 
a great failure. They saw then that it was impossible to stand longer upon 
that platform. And in 1872 they came squarely upon the reconstruction plat- 
form upon which I had stood in 1868, when I supported Grant, and they nomi- 
nated Horace Greeley as their standard bearer. Contrast the records of 
Grant and Greeley and say who made the biggest leap from Democracy — I 
in voting for Grant in 1868, or my opponent when he voted for Greeley in 
1872. But as Greeley was placed upon the reconstruction platform where 
I had stood, and to which the inevitable pointed as the future policy of 
the country, I stood still upon the platform and voted for Greeley. I did 
not abandon it because the Democracy came to it. I did not refuse to vote 
for Greeley, objectionable as he was, for he was nominated by the party of 
my preference, who stood upon the platform where I stood. And from that 
day to this I have constantly acted with the Democratic party. 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 543 

"You may examine all my utterances in reference to the reconstruction 
measures, and you will find that the tenor of them all was that 1 accepted 
in 1SG8 the reconstruction measures because there was no way to get rid of 
them, not because I approved of them, but I admitted the hardship. I took 
them as matter of necessity only, and not as matter of clioice. I felt 
no attachment to them. I had no devotion for them. But in 1876, when 
the Democratic convention of the Union met in St. Louis and nominated 
Tilden, having found that the mistake that they had made in 1868 had so 
prejudiced the country against tiiem that it was still denied that they had 
acquiesced in the reconstruction measures in good faith, they determined to 
make the acquiescence strong enough that it could no longer be questioned, 
and they there affirmed their devotion to the Constitution with the amend- 
ments. The fact is, I was never devoted to them, and there 1 could nut 
heartily stand upon the Democratic platform, but as my conqueror dictated 
them, and I accepted his terms in good faitli, I had accepted them ; 1 had 
sworn to support them, and I intend in good faith to do so. 

"But, as you all know, the result of that campaign was that Mr. Tilden, 
who was elected President, was counted out by the returning boards in the 
States of Florida and Louisiana, where the advice of my honorable opponent 
had prevailed during the period of reconstruction. When it was found that 
an effort would be made to count us out, Mr. Tilden did not question ray 
Democracy, but through a friend from his residence he telegraphed 
and requested that I go to Florida to aid him in securing a fair count. I 
went there and stayed and labored faithfully for more than a month, at 
my own expense, to secure such count, part of the time upon a sick bed 
where I had to have books brought to my bedside and prepare arguments 
with my secretary sitting by my bed. We failed there because a majority 
of the board were radicals, and no showing that could be made could con- 
trol or influence them. I did not have the control of matters there. That 
was assumed by a gentleman from New York, who claimed to be the special 
agent of Mr. Tilden. My opponent was also requested to go to Florida, 
but if I recollect correctly he stayed but a day or two. I believe it was said 
he had private business which called him home. 

" But soon afterwards Congress appointed a committee of investigation 
to go and look further into the matter and take testimony. I had returned 
home, and was lying upon a sick bed, unable to do anything. And at this 
point Mr. Hewitt, the chairman of the executive committee of the Demo- 
cratic party of the United States, telegraphed me and requested me to go to 
Florida and take control of our -case there. 1 would cheerfully have gone 
back and done so, but my bodily infirmity and suffering rendered it impossible 
at the time. If I am not to be relied on as a Democrat and cannot be trusted, 
and my opponent is a better Democrat than I am, why did not Mr. Tilden 
and Mr. Hewitt invite General Lawton to go there and take charge of the 
cause ? 



544 GOV. BEOWN'S GEEAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

"But let us come down a little further. During the present year the 
Democratic convention of the Union met at Cincinnati and nominated 
that grand and gallant soldier, Winfield S. Hancock, and placed him upon 
a platform fully recognizing the reconstruction acts. In his letter of accept- 
ance, he too lays down the position distinctly that ' the 13th, llth and 15th 
amendments to the Constitution of the United States, embodying the results 
of the war for the Union are inviolable. If called to the presidency, I 
should deem it my duty to resist with all my power any attempt to impair 
or evade the full force and effect of the Constitution, which, in every article, 
section and amendment, is the supreme law of the land.' Toombs says 
they are still null and void, and he speaks for General Lawton and is now 
grooming bim for his race. [Laughter and applause.] Hancock says they 
embody the results of the war, and are the supreme law of the land. 
General Lee says : ' Wisdom also dictates that the decision of the conventions 
should be cheerfully submitted to by the citizens of each State, who should 
unite in carrying out its decrees in good faith and kind feeling.' Which will 
you follow, Toombs and Lawton, or Lee and Hancock? [Applause.] 

" Both the Democracy and their great leader then plant themselves fully 
and firmly upon the Constitutional amendments, which were the substance 
of the reconstruction acts. Daring the recent campaign the chairman of 
the Democratic committee of the Union, Senator Barnum, wrote and urged 
me to go to Indiana to aid in the campaign for Hancock and English. 
Under the circumstances I could not do so, which I very much regretted. 
If I am not a Democrat to be trusted and would not in the Senate be a true 
exponent of the principles of the Democratic party why did he not ask 
General Lawton, my opponent, to go ? 

" I have not a sentiment or an instinct that is not in accord with the 
best interests of Georgia and of the country ; and I shall be one of the last 
men to furl the banner of the Democratic party and lay it away. My 
family and my property and all that is dear to me are in Georgia. The 
bones of my ancestors rest here, and I expect to be buried in her soil and 
leave my posterity upon it. Why then should I betray her ? When have 
I ever been untrue to her interests ? I shall always pay my devotions at 
her shrine ; I shall always be ready to maintain her interests and to stand 
by her honor, come what may. 

" From what I have already stated I think it unnecessary that I should 
further argue the point, that the Democratic party stands to-day fairly and 
squarely upon the reconstruction platform ; that it vies with the Republican 
party in the expression of its devotion to that platform, and to the consti- 
tutional amendments upon which it is based. Which was the worse, for 
me to be untrue to the Democratic party in 1868 when it neither stood up- 
on its old platform nor upon its present platform, or for my opponent to be 
untrue to it now, as would seem manifest from his speech before you? 
What was the staple of that speech ? It was an arraignment of me for ac- 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 645 

cepting the reconstruction acts and standing upon that platform and defend- 
ing acquiescence in them in 1868. He now arraigns me bitterly for having 
done so. Does it not raise a lair inference, therefore, that his heart is 
not now right upon these measures, and in his inmost bosom that he is not 
a friend to them and does not fully acquiesce? What, think you, would 
have been the effect of the speech delivered here the other night, if he had 
gone to Indiana and delivered it there during the campaign? What will 
now be (he effect of it upon the fortunes of the Democratic party north ? The 
Republicans will seize it everywhere, and say that General Lawton admits 
thiit Governor Brown has ability, that he is mentally qualified to represent 
Georgia in the Senate, but he denounces him as untrustworthy because he 
supported the reconstruction measures in 1868, and acted with the recon- 
struction party then. And if you elect him upon that speech, to the Senate, 
will it not be an acknowledgment of what has been so often charged by 
the Republicans, that the acceptance of the reconstruction measures by the 
Democracy of the South is insincere and is all a sham and a cheat ? 

" After the 4th of March next the President will be Republican, the House 
of Representatives will be controlled by the Republicans, and the Senate will 
most probably be a tie, when you count on the uncertainty of one or two mem- 
bers who have heretofore been Democrats, but were not elected as Democrats. 
Suppose you elect General Lawton to the Senate, and he enters the body un- 
der tfiese circumstances, how much influence will he have, either with the 
Republicans of the Senate or with the Northern Democrats? Will not the 
latter say : ' You are untrue to the very principles upon which we stand 
here. You are a recruit to the brigade of Southern brigadiers here, and 
the worst fire-eater among them. You denounce and would ostracise those 
who twelve years ago consented to stand where we now stand.' What could 
my opponent do for Georgia under these circumstances ? I leave wise legis- 
lators who have to make the selection to judge. 

" Rut I have already occupied too much time in reply to the assaults made 
upon me by my opponent on account of reconstruction. I think it time that is- 
sue were buried. I think it is time that all Georgians should imitate the exam- 
ple of Senator Hill, and lay those things behind them ; bury them deep in 
the grave, and look forward ; and harmonize and fraternize for the future ad- 
vancement of the State. Let the old Whig and Democratic issues, the seces- 
sion and Union issues, and the reconstruction issues and all the past bitter- 
ness and difference of opinion be buried ; and let us all unite and move 
forward harmoniously in the new era as citizens of the new South for the 
promotion of the good of the whole country. 

" My opponent lays down the rule that it is the duty of the Legislature to 
select a man for the Senate who represents the sentiment of Georgia, and 
that seems to be his platform — the sentiment of Georgia 1 What is senti-* 
ment? The dictionary defines it to be: First, sentimentality, feeling, emo- 
tion; second, thought, notion, opinion, judgment. Suppose we take the lat- 
35 



546 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

ter part of the definition, and my opponent's meaning is that you should se- 
lect a man who represents the opinions of Georgia. I accept the issue. I 
confess I may not be a proper represeutative of a certain sentimentality that 
there is in this State. There is a class of people in this State whose fathers 
a generation or two back possessed either wealth or distinction. They or 
their descendants were large slave holders, and they were usually classed as 
the aristocracy of tiie South. They are sometimes termed by the common 
people, ' the kid-glove aristocracy.' Either fortunately or unfortunately for 
me I never belonged to that class. I was born of humbler parentage. 1 had 
to work my own way in the world. I had to rise, if I rose at all, by my own 
exertions. I was brought up among the working class; rose from the mass 
ot the people. They took me by the hand and sustained me, because the}' 
believed I was true to them and was one of them. And they have never for- 
saken me in any instance where the popular voice could be heard. The aris- 
tocracy that I refer to above, and I do it with great deference, for I have 
great respect for them, never believed that anyone not born of wealthy par- 
entage should participate in the affairs of government; that belongs, accord- 
ing to their idea, to the privileged class. And when I rose up to some posi- 
tion, and the people determined to put me higher, and to place the helm of 
state in my iiands, some of these would-be rulers doubtless reganled me as 
an illegitimate in the political family of the State; they probably have few 
sentiments in common with me. They have led lives of leisure and elegance, 
indulging in festivities, discussing tine wines, weaving fine apparel, and keep- 
ing company with their own class. I have had to deal with the realities of 
life. I have had to labor all my life — first to obtain position, and then to do 
my duty in position. 1 have not had time, therefore, to cultivate the sort of 
sensibility or sentiment entertained by this class, and I confess very candidly 
that I am not a proper representative of that sentiment. If the people of 
Georgia tLink that a man should be sent to the Senate to represent that sen- 
timent of the old ruling class, as they assume to be, and not the sentiment 
of the great mass of the people of the State, then I admit that my honorable 
opponent is a fit representative. 

" IJut let us return to the definition. One of the meanings of the word is, 
opinion, judgment. Do I represent the opinion of the people of Georgia? I 
think that question has lately been decided and a verdict rendered in an un- 
questionable form. Governor Colquitt appointed me to fill the vacancy in 
the Senate of the United States. He was arraigned for that act by my oppo- 
nent and those who acted with him all over Georgia. I will not go into the 
facts in reference to the nomination or the campaign, further than to say 
that when my opponent concluded to run for the Senate he took the field in 
opposition to Governor Colquitt, and the great leading issue that lie made 
against him was that he had appointed me to the Senate. While he admitted 
rav ability, he was reported to have assailed tne bitterly, though he has i-ince 
said that the reports did him injustice ; and he spent a great deal of every 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 547 

speech made by him in an attempt to convince the people that the act was a 
great mistake. In a word, he made tliat the j^rominent issue ; and in every 
county, I believe, except Chatham, where he delivered a speech and took that 
position, arraigning Governor Colquitt's administration and arraigning me, 
the people responded by giving an overwhelming majority to Colquitt. I 
claim that I have a right to participate in that verdict. Not only did my 
opponent make the issue, but General Toombs, the ablest intellect among 
those who oppose me, also made it disiinctiy in his speeches. He denied 
that there was anything in tlie other charges made by the Norwood party 
against Governor Colquitt, but placed the opposition to Colquitt distinctly 
and alone upon the ground that he appointed me senator. Then the ablest 
man of the opposition in Georgia, and my opponent himself, both made the 
issue, distinct, clear and unequivocal, as to whether I was the proper man to 
go to the Senate. And with the attack made upon Governor Colquitt for my 
appointment and the issue fairly rendered, the people responded in our be- 
half, by a majority of nearly fifty-five thousand. Gener;.il Lawton made the 
point on me that 1 was not the proper man to go to the Senate; he anaigned 
the governor for appointing me a member of the Senate. The people replied 
and expressed their sentiment. In other words tiiey gave their opinion, their 
judgment; and they said by this enormous majority, that the general was 
mistaken ; that 1 and not he represented the popular sentiment of Georgia. 
The voters of General Toombs's own county decided in favor of Governor Col- 
quitt and myself by over 700 majority. 

" But they may say that the people did not take up the issue tendered by 
General Lawton and General Toombs, and that Governor Colquitt's majority 
is no just index as to what my majority would have been. I do not think 
any candid man, however, who hears me will contend for this position. But 
suppose my opponent plants himself upon it, then let us make a little com- 
parison of the relative votes given to me and Governor Colquitt in a few 
counties where the issue was made. In the county of Fulton, which was 
claimed largely for Norwood prior to the election, a ticket composed of the 
present sitting members was run, favoring my election; in other words a 
Brown ticket. Another ticket was run opposed to my election, part of its 
members very bitterly opposed, headed by an able lawyer and eloquent legis- 
lator of this city. The issue was made up between the two tickets. Gover- 
nor Colquitt carried the county by 230 majority I believe, and the lowest man 
on the Brown ticket carried it by more than a thousand majority over Col- 
onel Hoge, the highest man on the other ticket. Take the adjoining county 
of Cobb. There my old and honored friend, General Hansell, and Mr. Orr, 
his colleague, ran openly as the Brown ticket. Their opponents were known 
as the anti-Brown ticket. Governor Colquitt carried the county by a little 
over 30 majority; Hansell and Orr carried it by over 700 majority. Take 
the next county adjoining to that, Bartow, and there were, as I understand 
it, five candidates for the Legislature ; four of them were Brown men. One, 



548 GOV. BEOWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

an old member of the Legislature, was anti-Brown. The county went over 
600 mnjoiity for Norwood, and two of the Brown candidates were elected to 
the Legislature. Take the county of Coweta. It was agreed there that the 
senatorial contest should not come in to disturb the election of members, and 
they would run but one ticket. And they nominated the sitting members, 
Wilkerson and Post, with the understanding that the voters would be asked 
to indorse their tickets "Brown" or "anti-Brown, ' and if a majority were 
in favor of Brown, the representatives were to vote for me ; if a majority 
were opposed, they were to vote against me. What was the result? About 
1,400 votes were indorsed, and of this number Brown got over 1,200, or more 
than six to one. I could mention other instances, but let these sufRce. 
Doubtless there are portions of the State where Governor Colquitt was 
stronger than I was. But I do not think, in view of all these facts, that any- 
one will say that I was indorsed by a majority of less than fifty thousand in 
the State. 

" Defining sentiment to mean opinion, and it seems to me that the opinion 
of the people of Georgia has been emphatically expressed in my favor and 
against my opponent, and if the representatives of the people here carry out 
the will of the people, I shall certainly be returned to the Senate. 

" I accept the issue, then, that you elect a senator who is in accord with the 
sentiment of the great mass of the people of Georgia, not in accord with the 
sentiment of that small class who feel that they have a divine right to rule 
and who never expect to accept in good faith the reconstruction measures. 
The people of Georgia realize the fact that the world moves; that we have 
gone through a gr^at revolution ; that there has been a great change ; and 
they have moved and intend to move with it; and we shall have to move 
along and leave that small class of excellent people who have such tender 
sensibilities to their misfortunes. We do this with regret, but we have to 
bury the dead issues and to go forward with the living future. 

" If I shall be elected to the Senate, I shall go there to represent no sickly 
sentimentality, I shall go there to represent the interests, the prosperity and 
the honor of Georgia. I shall go there to do all in my power to bury dead 
issues, and it will not be my purpose to stand there as a fossil of the past 
ages, bewailing our losses and making no effort to retrieve our fortunes. 
But I shall try to stand there as a living man of the present, taking advan- 
tao^e of whatever opportunities may offer, to build up the waste places and 
restore prosperity and happiness to our people. 

" If you honor me with a seat in the Senate, I shall do all I can to advance 
the great agricultural interests of this State and of the whole country. Con- 
gress owes it to that class upon whom rests the responsibility of producing all 
that makes us a great people and upon which every other profession depends, 
to lend them every aid in its power. And I should not hesitate to vote for 
any appropriations that might be necessary to advance the improvement of 
agriculture, and to develop the agricultural resources of the country. I 



GOV. BKOWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 549 

should also feel it ray duty to do anything in my power to encourage the de- 
velopment of the great mineral wealth of this State and of the country. You 
have, imbedded in your valleys, hills and mountainp, inexhaustible supplies 
of iron and coal and other minerals, that in future will make Georgia one of 
the greatest States in the Union. Instead of lying still and doing nothing, I 
shall be ready to aid in any way T can in putting measures on foot for the 
development of these great interests. It; is also our duty to do everything we 
can, consistently with the rights of the people, to build up the manufactur- 
ing interest of the country. We have in the South the great staple upon 
which the exchanges of the country are conducted, and that moves the wheels 
of commerce. It has been found that the price of the cotton crop can be 
doubled and trebled here by manufacturing. We have in future no negroes 
to buy; we are making money; we shall want investments. Let us do all 
we can, then, to build up the manufacturing interests in Georgia, and thus 
greatly augment her wealth by giving employment to her citizens and fur- 
nishing markets for their productions, and sending off those productions in a 
shape to be worth several times the amount that they are iu the raw state 
when first pi'oduced. 

"I met, while in Washington, a number of very intelligent persons who 
made anxious inquiries in reference to our manufacturing interests here, and 
as to the profits made on investments. I told them we had advantages which 
they did not possess North. They asked in what they consisted. I said your 
streams are frozen up in New England part of every winter so as to be a se- 
rious obstruction to the business of manufacturing. In the South, there is 
never a day in the year that the wheels of every factory cannot run. There 
are no obstructions by ice. [Applause.] 

" Another point I made was that on account of the very cold weather during 
the northern winters, the cotton did not spin as well as it did in our climate. 
They said : 'Why, how do you know?' I replied that when I was a boy, 
when there were wet days, and I could not work out of doors on the farm, 
my mother taught me to spin ; and probably no girl in the country could then 
beat me spinning; [Great laughter and applause.] and I always found the 
threads did not draw as well of a cold, bleak day, as they did in mild weather. 
[Renewed laughter and applause.] They admitted that they had to keep the 
rooms at a temperature in winter that sometimes impaired the health of their 
operati ves. 

" Ai;ain, I stated that we had the advantage in cheap labor, and that the raw 
material is produced in the South in the fields around the factories them- 
selves, Thoy have to pay freight on their cotton from the South to New 
England, and then spin it and send it back to us and other markets. All 
this we save. [Applause.] We have comparatively no freight to pay; but 
send off the productions of our looms many times as valuable as the raw ma- 
terial at a great deal less cost. [Applause.] When I told them of the prof- 
its made by our Augusta mills, and the high price that the stock bore, some 



550 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

gentlemen of capital said they desired to look further into the matter, as they 
thought of investing in that line, and tliat tiiey would look through Georgia 
before they made an investment. [Applause.] 

"They inquired whether capital invested here would be protected. I told 
them that a citizen from any part of the Union could bring his money here 
and invest with perfect impimity, if they would act tlie part of fieaceable, 
law-abiding men and not try to stir up strife between the races. [Renewed 
applause ] I think there is good reason for the belief that within a few years 
a great deal of northern capital will be brought South to be invested in man- 
ufacturing. [Applause.] 

" As an aid in the development of these great interests, I shall do all I can 
to secure our part of the appropriation for the improvement of our harbors 
and the cleaning out of our rivers so as to make them navigable ; and to 
make those that cannot be navigated with large boats fit for rafting pur- 
poses. You have in the lower half of the State a timber interest that is 
worth many millions of dollars. Small appropriations judiciously expended 
would clean out the rivers of that section and put them in condition that 
you can raft down them all the year. Then by running railways and tram- 
ways out into the timber lands these millions of wealth can be sent to the 
markets of the world and the gold brought back in return. I shall do all I 
can to aid in that. I know some are opposed to all internal improvements 
by the general government, but it is an unquestionable fact that there will 
be from seven to ten millions of dollars a year expended for this pin-pose. 
And as we pay into the tieasury our part of the money necessary to the bur- 
dens of government, 1 shall feel it my duty to do all I can in the distribu- 
tion to get our share of it in return. I think justice and wise statesmanship 
require this. Xot only so, but I shall do everything possible to aid in the 
development of our harbors all along the coast, taking first the harbor of our 
beautiful city of Savannah. I pointed out in a speech delivered in the Senate 
the advantages of that harbor and shall never relax my efforts for its im- 
provement for 1 think great interests depend upon it. The other harbors 
around our coast and the inland channels should have the earnest attention 
of the representatives from Georgia in both Houses of Congress. I think I 
can do more good by seeking to develop these great interests while I remain 
in the Senate, if I am senator, than I would by sitting there and preparing 
an eloquent speech, with rounded periods, and delivering it once in six months, 
upon the sentimentality of the South and tiie Bourbonism of the past. 

" There is another great question that the statesman of the South has no 
right to disregard. I refer to the great question of popular education. Dis- 
guise it as you may, the New England States, by their broad and liberal 
educational system, the splendid endowments tiiey have given to their uni- 
vei'sities, and their admirable common school system, have educated their 
people up to a point which has given them great advantage in the contest 
for power and place in this government. Travel, if you please, over the 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 551 

broad plaiiis of the mighty West and j'ou will find in most instances that 
the lawyer, the physician, the doctor of divinity, the member of Congress, 
the schoolmaster, the literary man, the newspaper man, and the most promi- 
nent citizens in their cities were educated in New England. They have 
imbibed Xew Enghind ideas and through tlieir influence New England has 
dictated laws to the continent. If we would elevate the people of the South 
to the true position of power and influence to which they are entitled, we 
must educate the masses of our people and develop the bright intellect ia 
the humbler circles of life that is now left uncultivated. There is in many 
a cabin in the mountains or in the wire-grass of Georgia, a bright-eyed, 
brilliant little boy who has a diamond concealed in his breast, and neitlier 
he nor his parents know it. Send him to school long enough to rub the 
rough frcnn the diamond and it will begin to sparkle. Affoi-d him advan- 
tages to go a little further and it will be seen to be still more brilliant, and 
he will soon reach the point where you can neither keep him down nor limit 
his thirst for more knowledge. 

"Under the Prussian system the talent of the masses is carefully watched ; 
and in whatever department the natural bent seems to run the brilliant intel- 
lect is cultivated iintil its training has passed the stages of the common 
schools and the universities; and the man of grand intellect whose natural 
disposition runs in any particular line or art is made a master of that art. 
Thus the State gets the benefit of all the great intellect of the country devel- 
oped by proper training. Let us imitate the example of New England and 
Prussia and our people will soon reach a point where it will be impossible to 
keep them in the background. They will move forward to the front, and we 
shall develop the great resources of the South by native intellect, aided by 
culture and science. 

" But our condition is peculiar. During the period of slavery reasons of 
policy forbid the education of the colored race. They are now not only set 
free, but they are made citizens with all the legal rights of citizens; and 
being citizens it is our duty to make of them the best citizens in our power. 
Much to their credit be it said, they have shown a laudable ambition for the 
education of their children. We were a rich peofde when we went into tlie 
war, but we had to maintain our own armies for four years out of our own 
substance, for which we cannot now show a dollar. True, we got the bonds 
of the States and of the Confederacy during tlie time for our property. But 
they were repudiated at the end of the war and are now nullities. AVe not 
only had to submit to this great drain upon our resources, but we lost billions 
of dollars of gold that we iiad invested in slaves. And then at the end of 
the war we had to return to our place in the Union and resume our propor- 
tion of the burdens of government, and we have to pay our proportion of the 
war tax of the government. The slaves were set free by the Union as a 
matter of necessity. They are now ca*t upon us as free men, a large mass of 
ignorance. Is it just or generous for the Union to expect us in this impover- 



552 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. ' 

ished condition to take upon ourselves the entire burden of their education? 
I think no just man, North or South, who has thoroughly investigated this 
question can so contend. What then shall be done in this state of tilings? 
My opinion is that the Government of tlie Union should assume the burden 
of aiding in the education ofthe people. And I think the most permant^nt 
fund and the best fund that could be appropriated to that purpose would be 
the incomes from the sales of the public lands. Let them be kept separate 
in the treasury as an educational fund and let them be annually distributed 
among all tiie states in the Union in proportion to the illiteracy tl)at exists 
in each. I would not confine the money to the education ofthe colored race, 
but apply it alike to the education of white and colored. As we have the 
foup millions of colored people among us, we of course have a great deal 
more illiteracy than there is in New England and we would get more of the 
money. But I believe the enlightened people of New England, seeing the 
condition in which we are placed by the abolition of slavery and tlie results 
of the war, would generally acquiesce in a measure giving us this advantage 
until we have reached a period when the intelligence of the diiferent sections 
is placed nearer upon an equal basis. I cannot speak authoritatively upon 
this question. I do not know what view Congress may take of it; but I do 
not hesitate to say, if I should have the honor of sitting there, that it will 
afford me great pleasure to support a measure looking to this great ivsult. 

" I know this, however, does not comport with the old idea of the old 
regime of the South. The slavery system, while in existence, was incompat- 
ible with this view. But we must remember that we are not now living 
under that sj'stem. As already stated, we live in a new era., and the new 
South must adopt new ideas, must wake up to new energy, and must stand 
upon the broad platform of equal rights and equal justice to all. We must 
conform to the constitution and laws as they now exist; and we mu?t see 
that every citizen, whatever may be his race, color, or previous condition, 
has every legal I'ight to which he is entitled. Legal equality must be strictly 
and impartially enforced; social equality must be left to take care of itself 
in the South as it is left in every other land. I am for a free ballot and a 
fair count, and for the execution of the 13th, 14th, and loth amendments in 
honest good faith. It has been charged that I have probably promised some 
colored men, in case of Garfield's election, to try to secure positions for them. 
I do not know what influence I may have with the new administration. It 
would be my purpose to deal justly and liberally with it. While I sacrifice 
no principle of democracy I shall make no unnecessary assault upon the 
administration. I prefer, as far as principle will admit, to act in harmony 
with it; and if I find Democrats cannot get the patronage in our Slate, as 
the colored race constitutes a large majority of the Republican party of the 
State, I believe they would be entitled to be represented in the distribution 
of the offices. Some of them are now qualified to fill certain positions, and if 
the party with which they act is in power, they would seem to be entitled to 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 553 

something. Senator Hill, in 1870, said that he would prefer an honest negro 
to a dishonest white man. Doubtless there are some white men in Georgia 
no more qualified for position and no more honest than some of the better 
class of the colored race. We had just as well make up our minds to meet 
the issue fairly. The reconstruction measure must be executed in good faith, 
and the legal rights of every citizen must be respected and protected without 
regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. I do not wish, 
while I am a candidate, to mislead the representatives of the people, and I 
therefore state my position on this question distinctly and frankly in advance 
of the election which is to take place to-morrow. I understand this to be 
exactly the doctrine contained in the Dfmocratic platform and in the letter 
of acceptance of General Hancock. We have made these pledges to the 
country and should carry them out in strict good faith. 

" But I must notice the sectional argument made by my opponent. He 
takes the position, as I understand it, that I should not be elected to the 
Senate because I live in Atlanta, and that he, or some one else should be 
elected from his section, because he lives in Savannah. I confess I do not 
see what the particular place of a man's residence has to do with his capacity 
to serve his constituents or the constituency of his State in the Senate. 
Wlien I took my seat in the Senate I did not feel that I was there as the 
representative of Atlanta, or any other locality in Georgia, but as the repre- 
sentative of the whole State. The first act I did there was to move to restore 
the ten thousand dollars which the House of Representatives had incorpor- 
ated in the Harbor and River Bill for the harbor of Brunswick, which had 
been stricken out by the committee on commerce in the Senate. After a 
considerable contest, in which my colleague also aided, the ten thousand dol- 
lars was restored to the Bill and Brunswick gets the money. In other words, 
I had been there but a short time, in the language of General Toombs, my 
distinguished opponent, before I scented the treasury; and I ran my hand in 
up to the elbow and pulled out ten thousand dollars and gave it to the Bruns- 
wick harbor. I accept the taunt and do not complain of the position in 
which it places me. True to the same instinct, I next moved to amend the 
River and Harbor Bill by increasing the appropriation for the Harbor of 
Savannali from i^65,000 to $100,000. I wanted to put my arm in there and 
pull out $35,000 for Savannah, But the committee said they could not per- 
mit their re[iort to be overruled in so many particulars, and they seemed to 
feel that it was especially necessary, as the session was drawing to a close, 
that the bill should pass as nearly as possible like it came from the commit- 
tee. Many of you have seen what I said and did there on that occasion. I 
did all in my power to serve Savannah ; and I think I have sowed the seeds 
which will yet produce the harvest for her. 

" The next act I did was to introduce a bill in behalf of a railroad that is 
building from VVaycross through to Jacksonville, Florida, which crosses the 
St. Mary's river below Traver's Hill. That river being a navigable stream, 



654 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

though only a hundred feet wide, it was necessary to get the consent of Con- 
gress before a permanent bridge could be put across it, unless it be a draw- 
bridge for boats to go through. And as tiie real head of navigation is below 
the point and (he boats do not come there, and the river is used only for 
rafting purposes, to put a pier in the middle of it so as to put in a draw- 
bridge, as would have been required of the railroad company, would have 
obstructed it so that the timber could not have been rafted down it. My 
bill was to authorize the company to build a permanent bridge there without 
the draw, and without the obstruction in the way of the timber interest. 
And I got it passed through the Senate. And the honorable representative 
from the first will no doubt get it passed through the House when he goes 
back there in December. I was not very sectional, therefore, in the start I 
made iu the Senate. My first act was in favor of Brunswick, my second in 
favor of Savannah, and my third in favor of Charlton county, in the ex- 
treme southeastern corner of the State. I did more for lower Georgia than 
I did for upper Georgia while I was there. AVhether General Lawton would 
have done more for that section had he been there, I must leave for you to 
judge. 

" But I must contend, if you will psrmit me to treat this subject •with a 
little levity, that General Lawton has, it seems to me, recognized the pro- 
priety of the senators coming from the same locality. My friend Hill never 
could get into Congress until he moved into the ninth district, the upper 
portion of the State. He was then elected representative and from that to 
the Senate. And it may yet be questionable whether his residence is in 
Atiiens or Atlanta. I sprang from the ninth district. In other words I am 
from Gaddistown, in Union county, where they said I plowed the bull. 
[Tumultuous laughter and applause.] The county represented here by my 
friend Sena or Curtis, near the line of the district represented by my old 
friend Senator Duggar. And I am not ashamed of the place whence I 
sprang. My young friend Speer was never so distinguished till he went to 
the ninth district. It is a good place to look for congressmen in. There 
they soon elected him to Congress and have lately returned him by 
over 4,000 majority. [Great applause.] Finding therefore that I 
sprang from the ninth district, and tliat Mr. Hill went into the ninth district 
and got into the Senate, when senatorial asi)irations seized my friend. Gen- 
eral Lawton, he at once established a summer residence at Mount Airy, up 
in the ninth district. [Prolonged laughter and applause.] He must not 
complain, therefore, that two of us already in position come fiom the ninth 
district, when he, too, goes there as soon as he determines to seek position. 
[Laughter.] I do not think the geographical objection is well taken. If I 
should be elected, gentlemen, I shall giuird with equal care and vigilance 
the interests of evei-y county and every section of Georgia. 

"In defending myself against the assaults made by my ojiiponent, I have 
not arraigned him. I think we have too much personal bitterness in our 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 555 

campaigns. It seerns to me the people are determined to put a quietus up- 
on it. Probably there was never a campaign in Georgia wheie there was 
so much vituperation and abuse, as there was against Governor Colquitt in 
the late campaign, and the people rose up and said 'stop it.' And they 
spoke in thunder tones rounded off by a majority of fifty-five thousand 
■when they again said, 'It shall stop!' I do not believe, gentlemen, that 
you approve of the mode adopted by my opponent to seek his advancement 
by assailing my political record, in a matter of twelve years ago in the dead 
past, where it turns out that the mountain indeed did not go to him, but he 
had to go to the mountain. I might go back and examine the official lecord 
of General Lawton in the most responsible place he ever held. He made 
a gallant soldier during the earlier periods of the war. 'He was then made 
quartermaster-general of the Confederate States. He represented very well 
the sentiment of the ruling class to which T have referred. No doubt he 
acted honestly and uprightly. But I tliink I have seldom heard as much 
complaint of the management of any department as I heard during that 
period of the management of the quartermaster department. If my 
friend was not at fault he seems to have been singularly unfortunate in tlie 
selection of his agents. But I do not propose to make an assault there. I 
simply say that any administration of mine will compare favorably with 
his administration of the quartermaster's department of the Confederate 
States of America. 

"He has arraigned me for accepting a fee to prosecute the Columbus 
prisoners. I have not time nor have you patience to go over the discussion 
on that question. It has been of late so fully discussed, and my motives 
have been so fully defined before the country and sustained by such unques- 
tionable evidence, that 1 do deem it necessary to recur further to it. I was 
the best friend of the unfortunate defendants in that unfortunate struggle. 
I might in reply inquire where my opponent has stood in contests of tliis 
character whei-e popular rights were at stake. As has been shown within 
the last two or three days by a writer in The Constitution — and it was 
not at my suggestion — the very idea of taxing the railroads of Georgia 
originated with me while I was in the executive office. It is only my idea 
put into effect. I vetoed charters on all occasions when there was any 
attempt to limit the taxing power and guarded it carefully, and called at- 
tention to the fact that it would become necessary to exercise it. When 
the time did come to carry out my policy there, and legislation was had on 
the subject. General Lawton accepted a fee and appeared as the champion 
of the largest corporation in Georgia in resisting the law to tax that grand 
corporation. At a later period the Legislature thought it necessary to ap- 
point a railfoad commission to intervene between the people and the railroads 
in regulating freight and transportation. The contest arose between the 
people of southwest Georgia'and the great corporation of the State in refer- 
ence to that question. And General Lawton accepted a fee and appeared 



556 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

in behalf of the corporation against what the people believed to be their 
rights. On all these great popular questions, therefore, he has thrown him- 
self in the breach as the champion of corporations against what is claimed to 
be the rights of the people. When he arraigns me for accepting a fee in a 
case that I would have had a right to appear in, if it had even been with 
the view as counsel to conduct the case to conviction if guilt was established, 
he should remember where he has appeared against the popular current, 
and what was regarded as the popuhir interest, and as represetiting monop- 
oly against popular rights. In other words, those who live in glass houses 
ougiit not to throw stones. 

" It is charged by my opponent, that in a speech delivered at the city hall 
in Atlanta in 1868, I threatened my own race with the torch, and attempted 
to incite the negroes to acts of bloodshed and devastation. This cliarge 
does me great injustice. And just here it is proper that I should state 
the surroundings under which the speech was delivered. Public notice was 
given that I should address the people on that occasion. On the morning 
before the meeting I was warned at different times and by different friends 
not to go upon the grounds, as, it was said there was a band leagu-ed together 
for my assassination if I attempted to speak to the crowd on that day. I re- 
plied that I had promised to speak, and it was so advertised, and I should 
be there; that I should do all I could to avoid a collision, but if it must 
come I should take the consequences. An intimate friend and relative of 
mine received a like warning, and was urged not to permit me to go there. 
He replied that he knew I would go. Hearing of the threats, a few friends 
of mine accompanied me to the stand and remained there, armed for an 
emergency, while 1 delivered the speech. The friend who received that 
warning, and who sat with his hand upon his pistol while I delivered the 
speech, is iu this audience to-night. Others who were present in like 
capacity are still in life. It is well known that at that time there were 
occasional assassinations growing out of the bitterness engendered by 
political divisions. Speaking under the warning that my life was in danger 
every moment, and knowing that the effect of an attack would be a general 
outbreak, I warned both races against intolerance or an attempt to in- 
terfere with the relative rights of each other. I warned the white race that 
they could not get rid of negro suffrage by an appeal to violence ; that four 
millions of people enfranchised by revolution could not be disfranchised 
without bloodshed. I warned them as friends to be cautious on both sides 
and not to' put their lives in jeopardy and their homes and families in peril 
And I especially warned my own race of the extreme danger to them, in 
case of a collision, and referred to the fact that the colored people had but 
little except their lives to hazard, but that the white people had their lives 
and their property, and their houses. And I cautioned them to be care- 
ful how they excited discord and bloodslied. The warning was given alike 
to both races uuder cii-curastances of extreme peril. The advice was good 



GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 557 

that both sides keep the peace. Each felt that life was in danger if a blow 
was stricken. And as the threat of assassination came from my race, and 
they had most to lose by striking it, the caution probably had its influence 
in preventing bloodshed, which, if begun, might have ended in fearful de- 
struction of life and property. 

" These are the circumstances under which the speech was made and the 
substantial facts. 1 am not responsible for the newspaper reports at the 
time any more than my opponent was responsible for the recent inaccurate 
reports of liis speeches made by the papers who favored his election; and 
he has disclaimed the correctness of the reports made by papers friendly to 
him. You have the substantial facts, however, before you. I feel that the 
warning was timely ; that the circumstances required it, and that good 
results followed it; and I am not afraid of an adverse verdict of an enlight- 
ened public when the facts are known. 

" What interest had I in inciting insurrection and bloodshed and the 
application of the torch to houses and other property ? Had 1 not as much 
at stake as almost any other citizen in Atlanta? If the blow had been 
stricken probably my life would have been taken and my property first de- 
stroyed. You will all give me credit for intelligence enough to understand 
this ; and I am quite sure you will not doubt that under the circumstances 
my earnest desire was so to shape my course and my advice to both races 
as to secure peace and harmony and not to incite bloodshed and the use of 
the torch. My enemies, a little hard run in their search for something in 
the past out of which to make capital, have brought this matter to the 
attention of the public. I meet it with a fair, honest statement of facts, 
and am re^idy to abide the verdict of an enlightened public. Would any 
of you under similar trying circumstances have done less than caution 
both races to keep the peace, under the fear of penalties to each resulting from 
an outbreak? I am satisfied you would not, and I here dismiss this charge. 

" General Toombs, in his speech, is reported to have said, that the Seymour 
platform declared the reconstruction acts to be unconstitutional, null and void, 
and that this is true yet ; and that he does not believe five hundred honest 
men voted for them. Over thirty thousand white men in Georgia voted to 
accept them, whose honesty of purpose would not suS'er in comparison 
with that of General Toombs. Note the remark : he declares that it is true 
yet thai the reconstruction acts are unconstitutional, null and void. Every one 
of you has sworn to support them. Did you understand you were swearing 
to support a nullity, an unconstitutional or void act? The trouble with 
the general is that he fails to learn wisdom by experience. He has always 
had a turn for pulling down, and was never successful in building up 
anything. He is a good phrase-maker ; and he has much to say about the 
protc^ction of the public treasury. He has managed to get into a number 
of lawsuits as counsel for the State in railroad and other cases, where he 
scented the treasury, and ran his arm deep into it and drew out large 



558 GOV. BROWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 

amounts, or rather he retained large amounts collected as fees, which he 
did not pay into the treasury. Under the high sounding plirase of 'serving 
the Coinuiouwealth,' his 'old mother,' [Laugiiter] he has lined his pockets 
with lucrative fees. I believe we have never learned how much he has re- 
tained as fees from the amounts collected, and how much he has drawn 
directly from the treasury. It is said the amount of his fees and commis- 
sions ranges somewhere between twenty-five and fifty thousand dollars. If 
I am misinformed he can easily correct it, by giving the public a full state- 
ment of all the fees, commissions or money, which he has received or retained on 
account of services rendered in cases where he professes he represented the 
State. I make no charge against General Toombs [Laughter and applause], 
but he has so much to say about the dishonesty of better people, that the 
citizens of Georgia would no doubt be glad to have a statement of the 
amount he has retained in these cases. 

"But I would ask, which do you prefer? I put my hand into the treas- 
ury and draw out ten thousand dollars for Brunswick, for our own people, 
while General Toombs, the volunteer for the Commonwealth in civil cases, 
is said to have put his hand into the treasury of our people and drawn out 
much more than that amount for his own pocket. 

" He turns a few paragraphs upon the Bullock administration. Gov- 
ernor Bullock was brought back to the State, after he had taken up his 
residence in New York ; and he was placed upon trial before the court, and 
he was acquitted by a jury of his country of every charge they brought 
against him in court. Why did not this faithful guardian of the rights 
of the people appear and make good his charges that Bullock had stolen 
money from the State ? Why did he not prosecute to conviction Foster 
Blodgettand those that he terms thieves under his administration? Several 
of them were put upon trial but we hear little of the verdicts of conviction. 
Was it because there were no large per cents, to be retained, as fees, as in 
the case of collections in railroad cases, that the eloquence of the great 
volunteer for the Commonwealth was not heard in the prosecution? Why 
did he permit these criminals to go un whipped of justice in the courts, if 
they were as guilty as he says they were? 

" The course taken by General Toombs since the war is very well illus- 
trated by the story of the old gentleman in one of the counties between here 
and the Savannah river. He and his old lady started in the buggy to visit 
some friends and on the way had to cross the river. In going down into 
the flat one of the straps broke and the buggy ran upon the heels of the 
horse, and he kicked himself loose and ran back home. The good old lady, 
who believed in the policy of reconstructing, gathered up the fragments of 
the harness and started for home. The old man refused to go, but sat down 
on the river bank and commenced cursing. The old lady, however, carried 
the pieces home, got an awl and an ' end ' as they call it, and began re[)air- 
ing the harness. And finding the horse at home she told the servant to 



GOV. BEOWN'S GREAT SPEECH OF 1880. 559 

take him and go down to the river and meet the old man and bring him 
home. After an absence of an liour or so the servant returni'd, and she 
asked, 'Where is the old man?' And he said, 'He wouldn't come.' Tlien she 
said, ' What is he doing?' The servant said, 'He is still sittin' down on 
the river bank, cussin'.' [Tumultuous laughter and applause.] 

" So in this case we have had a war brought on more by the a«;ency of Gen- 
eral Toombs than of any other man in the South. It turned out differently 
from what he and others of us expected. We have been unfortunate. We have 
broken the harness, the horse has kicked ont, and the question has arisen 
what is to be done? The mass of our people have concluded it wns better 
to gather up the fragments, reconstruct the harness and the vehicle, and 
prepare to move forward again, and do all we can to restore our lost pros- 
perity. We have appealed to General Toombs, who led us into the destruction, 
to aid us in the reconstruction, but the old man refused to do anything to 
aid in restoring prosperity, and sat down on the river bank and commenced 
cursing. 

" We were obliged to move forward, but, like the good old lady, we sent 
the horse back for him, and he still refuses to come; and the report is 
that he is still sitting on the river bank a cussin'. And as tlie country must 
move forward, we are obliged to leave liim there and let him cuss. [Pro- 
longed laughter and applause.] 

" I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, for having detained yon so 
long. I could scarcely have done justice to the subject and to my defence 
and said less. I feel that I have been true to you, true to my State, true to 
the whole country. I told you the truth when it was exct edin^ly unpalat- 
able. I did not shrink from the responsibility, and I have passed through 
a hard ordeal. I knew my vindication was only a question of time, and I 
have never doubted that truth would prevail. And I thank God that 

' Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 

The eternal years of God are hers; 
But error, wounded, writhes iu pain, 
And dies among his worshippers!' " 

During the delivery of the speech Governor Brown 
was frequently and enthusiastically applauded. At the 
conclusion, as he was about to take his seat a telegram 
was handed him, when he resumed as follows : — 

" I ask the indulgence of the audience for one moment, while I read a 
telegram. It it from a gentleman to whom I had commimicated my in- 
tended course and my motive when I first took position for the acceptance of 
the reconstruction measuies. He is a bosom friend, a man of the higheist 
character ; he was an ornament to the Judiciary of Georgia, while upon the 



560 HON. EMORY SPEER. 

bench; he ably represented our country at a foreign court, and on the plains 
of Mexico, and on the ensanguined fields of the South he led Ids troops 
with tlie gallantry and courage of a Marshal Ney ; he is one of tlie purest 
, and noblest men of Georgia, the Hon. Henry li. Jackson, of Savannah." 
[Applause ] 

The speaker then handed the telegram to a friend, 

who read as follows: — 

Savannah. Ga., ) 

Nov. 15, 1880, 9:40 p. M. ) 

" Returning home, have just opened your letter too bite to reply by niaiL In 
the conversation referred to, you used arguments afterwards addressed to 
the public. In addition, you said that unless some one should pursue the 
course you contemplated, you thought great evil would result to our people. 
You felt it your duty to pursue that course, but believed you would 
probably be sacrificed; that yon were prepared to make the sacrifice, look- 
ing alone to the protection of your race against the peculiar dangers before 
it. This briefly is my recollection of the conversation. You can publish 
if you desire. " Henky R. Jacksox." 

The telegram was greeted with renewed applause, when 
loud calls were made for the Hon. Emory Speer, who 
spoke as follows: — 

" Ladies and Gentlemen : — T cannot do myself the injustice to fail to thank 
you for the compliment, the very gratifying compliment, which j'ou pay me 
this evening by this invitation to speak to you. It would ill become me, 
however, to attempt to supplement the logic, the force and the natural 
eloquence of that magnificent vindication which has just fallen from the 
lips of this distinguished Georgian. [Applause.] It was not .spread-eagle 
oratory ; it was not that power above power, of heaveidy eloquence, that 
with the strong rein of commanding words doth master sway and move the 
eminence of men's affections ; but a simple narrative, it was, my fellow- 
citizens, the eloquence of truth. [Applause.] The vindication is absolute ; 
it is complete. Were I a member of the General Assembly of Georgia I 
would vote for that man for senator who, when a poor boy, drove a pair of 
young steers of his own raising [Cheers and applause] from Gaddistown in 
the ninth district, to South Carolina, and there sold them for the money 
that paid for the board and scliooling of the first year of his fiee life. [Re- 
newed applause.] I would vote for the man who has successively become, 
by his unaided exertions, senator in the General Assembly of Georgia, judge 
of the superior court, governor of this grand old Commonwealth, chief jus- 
tice of the supreme court of his State, president of the most powerful rail- 



RE-ELECTION OF SENATOR BROWN. 561 

road corporation South, and senator from Georgia. [Applause.] I do not 
believe in that school of politics which teaches the doctrine of unpardonable 
sin. For my part I am proud of this great Georgian. [Applause.] I have 
witnessed his efforts in the senate chamber of the United States. I heard 
there the first utterances that fell from his lips. And I saw that such men 
as Blaine and Conkling regarded him at once as a foeman worthy of their 
steel. [Applause.] Let us not live in the past. Let us not, like political 
ghouls, drag from their graves the dead issues of the past and make them 
like ghosts that will not down, but terrify and mislead ; let us, my fellow citi- 
zens, live in the living present, and in the hopeful future. And let us, oblivious 
of the past except to remember its lessons of heroism and to avoid its 
mistakes, labor to develop that magnificent heritage with which a divine 
providence has blessed the American people. [Renewed applause.] So 
living and so acting upon the plane of a common humanity, a common brother- 
hood, a common destiny and a common country, our institutions will pros- 
per, our government will flourish, and soon the day will hasten on 

' When freedom's flag, here first unfurled, 
Shall wave above earth's prostrate thrones, 
And its bright stars shall light the world.' " 

[Great and continued applause.] 

The vote of the Legislature for United States senator 
stood 146 for Governor Brown and 64 for General Law- 
ton, being a majority of 82, or 12 over a two-thirds 
majority in an aggregate of 210 votes. It was a fairly 
won victory of the most decisive character. It was so 
complete a triumph as to destroy the possibility of depre- 
ciation. The result could not be construed as the test 
of the strength of General Lawton with the people, for 
under other circumstances he w^ould have received a 
larger vote. But the result was the measure of Gov- 
ernor Brown's renewed hold upon his people, and no man 
could have made a better showing against him than the 
distinguished citizen and soldier whom he so decisively 
defeated. 

Senator Brown's career in the Senate has been a sur- 
prise and marvel of industry and intellectual activity. 
There is nothing in the historj^ of legislation to compare 

36 



562 ABLE SPEECHES IN THE SENATE. 

with it. Let us look briefly at the topics upon which he 
has made elaborate and thoughtful speeches, full of in- 
formation and statesmanship, exhibiting profound knowl- 
edge and broad reflection, and involving the most difficult 
subjects of national and international legislation. Among 
these were speeches as follows: — 1. December 15, 1880, 
On the Educational Fund, covering 13 closely printed 
nonpareil pages; 2. January 24, 1881, Land in Severalty 
to Indians, and is he a Citizen under the 14th Amend- 
ment? 13 pages; 3. February 17, 1881, The Bill to 
refund the National Debt, 8 pages; 4. March 28, 1881, 
That Peculiar Coincidence of Senator Mahone, 15 pages; 
5. April 14, 1881, A Free Ballot and a Fair Count, 20 
pages; 6. January 18, 1882, On the Silver Question, 20 
pages ; 7. February 16, 1882, The Mormon Question, 15 
pages; 8. March 6, 1882, The Chinese Bill, 16 pages; 
9. March 27, 1882, A Tariff for Revenue with Incidental 
Protection, 16 pages ; 10. December 14, 1882, Civil Ser- 
vice Reform, 15 pages ; 11. January 8, 1883, The Right 
of the Confederates to the Proceeds of the Sale of Cotton 
in. the Treasury, 24 pages ; 12. January 23, 1883, The 
Tariff and the Internal Revenue System, 15 pages ; 13. 
February 20, 1883, The Proper Rule for Raising Revenue, 
16 pages. 

These speeches are printed in the Appendix to this 
volume, and illustrate the versatile, the practical, the 
prodigious capacity of Senator Brown, and they consti- 
tute a series of intellectual demonstrations unparalleled 
in the annals of Congress. A senator who in one term 
of six years accomplishes two leading speeches upon large 
themes of national interest comes up to the full measure 
of a reasonable public expectation. The preparation for 
such an attempt involves heavy labor and extensive re- 



HIGH ESTIMATE IN THE SENATE. 563 



search, the examination of authorities, and the study of 
statistics. The serious part of the speech is, then, the 
adjustment of the line of thought, the construction of the 
groundwork with suitable material, and the erection of a 
symmetrical superstructure of deduction that will pass 
the unsparing criticism of the highest representative 
statesmanship of Mty millions of intelligent people, im- 
bued with the spirit of free institutions. 

In a little over two years this strong-brained and mar- 
vellously equipped senator ^rom Georgia prepared and 
delivered a dozen leading speeches upon the largest topics 
of national statesmanship, all admitted by his critical col- 
leagues in the august body to be masterly expositions, 
attracting general attention by their original treatment, 
marked by breadth of conception, builded with consum- 
mate logic, and looking to a sagacious practicality of 
result. The high estimate put upon his powers by the 
members of the Senate was variously expressed. Men of 
all parties united in strong encomium upon his abilities. 
Senator McDonald of Indiana used these words about 
him : — 

"He is one of the most valuable additions made to the 
Democratic force in the Senate for years. More than 
that, he is a senator whose influence will be felt all over 
the country. He seemed to recognize instantly upon 
coming into the Senate that it was not a debating society, 
but strictly a practical business body. He therefore 
became at once a sensible, straightforward, sagacious 
worker, and won the confidence and esteem of both sides 
of the chamber. He can be a power for good in the 
practical questions that must be settled now that senti- 
mental issues have died out." 

Mr. Hill, his colleague, valued his powers highly. Their 



564 AMO]!^G THE LEADING SENATORS. 

political careers had been curiously blended. In his first 
race for governor, Senator Brown had defeated Mr. Hill 
after a heated canvass and discussion. Mr. Hill was a 
warm supporter of conscription and other matters of pol- 
icy by the Davis administration, when Governor Brown 
opposed such policy. In the reconstruction days they 
stood against each other in their famous controversy on 
the " Notes on the Situation," though Mr. Hill subse- 
quently came to Governor Brown's views. They were 
now colleagues, and Senator Hill, in his admiration for 
his old antagonist whom he had learned to know, declared 
him possessed of "discretion, sagacity, and inflexible 
patriotic sentiments." Senator Conkling, himself a man 
of large mental stature, affirmed the opinion that he 
" looked to see Senator Brown one of the most notable 
men in the country." Perhaps the most felicitous piece 
of praise of the new Georgia senator was by Senator 
Lamar of Mississippi, who said, " The ease, dignity, and 
power with which he established himself as one of the 
leaders of the Senate was simply marvellous." 

His speech on the " Peculiar Coincidence " of Senator 
Mahone, a Democrat, supporting a Republican organiza- 
tion of the Senate and the nomination of his friends, Gor- 
hara and Riddleberger by the Republican caucus, for sec- 
retary and sergeant at arms, was effectively made. The 
Democrats would not go into an election, and the Repub- 
licans held back from executive session. Senator Brown 
exposed the significance of Senator Mahone's un-Demo- 
cratic conduct, and was the instrument of holding the 
Democrats in determined opposition to the fillibustering 
tactics of the Republicans. His policy was followed and 
resulted in a Democratic triumph, the first in a long pe- 
riod, and which counteracted the demoralization that had 



DISCUSSION OF THE NATIONAL FINANCES. 5G5 

been gradually seizing the Democracy. This speech and 
the line of policy connected with it, illustrate the bold, 
astute, self-reliant quality of leadership that has given 
Governor Brown such success in political management. 

One striking peculiarity of Senator Brown is the full- 
ness with which /he works, giving an exhaustive treatment 
to whatever he handles. This is especially true of these 
senatorial speeches. With a remarkable perception of 
fundamental principle, with great faculty of generaliza- 
tion accompanied by absolute grasp of detail, his exposi- 
tions of the subjects were thorough and searching, going 
to their very vitals. 

His speech on education covered the subject entirely. 
Always an advocate of the most liberal educational facili- 
ties, standing, as the young governor of thirty-seven years 
of age, far ahead of the times, his early convictions had 
ripened with years, and he presented an unanswerable line 
of thought impregnably fortified with historic illustration. 
Upon the colossal theme of national finances he made two 
strong and able expositions, one on refunding the national 
debt, and the other against the policy of contracting the 
currency by the withdrawal of the silver certificates from 
circulation, and urging that the proper circulating medium 
of this country was gold and silver coin, based upon the 
proper ratio of equivalence between the two metals, and 
issues of paper predicated upon and convertible into coin 
on demand. These efforts were marked by breadth of 
view and that keen discernment of the practical needs of 
the country that distinguish this senator upon all public 
questions. In this financial connection he made an elabo- 
rate and conclusive argument on the rights of the citizens 
of the late Confederate States to the ten millions of dol- 
lars in the United States treasury, the proceeds of the sale 



566 CITIZENSHIP OF THE INDIANS. 

of their cotton seized by the agents of the government, 
discussing the effect of the President's pjirdon on their 
rights. 

On the mighty and perplexing subject of the tariff, that 
kaleidoscopic puzzle of the politicians, he was the author 
of three original deliverances, in which, with characteris- 
tic boldness, he formulated the doctrine upon which the 
Democratic party must stand in its conflicts, a position 
combining with singular felicity the requirements of prin- 
ciple witli the demands of progress. This happy enuncia- 
tion was "a tariff for revenue with incidental protection," 
and was ably argued. In the second of these tariff 
speeches, he discussed in his trenchant and unmincing 
method the wrongs of the internal revenue system, with 
its arbitrary espionage and oppressions. The third of 
these tariff speeches presented forcibly the proper rule for 
raising revenue to support the government, taxing luxu- 
ries hig;her and necessaries lower. 

A subject of great magnitude and importance and in- 
volving constitutional questions of delicacy was that of 
citizenship, and upon this he made a series of speeches, 
handling it in its various aspects with consummate mas- 
tery and profound insight into the principles involved. 
One speech was addressed to the citizenship of the Indians 
in connection with their right to severalty in lands. The 
second was upon the proper way of dealing with the 
Mormons, whose religious system presents the anomalous 
moral conundrum of our civilization. The third was con- 
sideration of that vexatious inundation of Chinese labor, 
that was pouring in upon the Pacific coast ; and whose 
alleged evils were complicated with international treaties 
affecting both commerce and missionary operations. The 
fourth, and a powerful presentation of view upon the 



SENATORIAL LABORS. 567 

overmastering negro question, was his extraordinary 
speech upon a free ballot and a fair count, in which he 
daringly asserted and proved that the colored citizens of 
the South have greater freedom of ballot than a large 
class of white citizens in New England, and that the Re- 
publican party had done justice neither to them nor the 
white Republicans of the South. 

Another engrossing theme upon which Senator Brown 
made one of his sensible and comprehensive speeches, 
that seized the public thought and impressed the country 
with his strong individuality, was civil service reform, 
upon which there was a vast amount of cant and sophis- 
try in vogue. The measure before Congress, the pet of 
Mr. Pendleton, a Democratic aspirant for the presidency, 
and favored by the Republicans as a political weapon, 
was boldly declared by Senator Brown to be not de- 
manded by public sentiment, and in its existing shape 
either a delusion or injustice to a majority of the peo- 
ple. And the operations of the measure since are veri- 
fying the correctness of his strictures, sagaciously uttered 
in anticipation. 

These many speeches in so short a time, all able and 
exhaustive, all upon great topics of pressing interest, all 
covering every line of practical argument, directed both 
to the underlying principles and their resultant utility, 
afford striking examples of the wonderful mental fecundity 
and immense industry of the man. They established the 
high statesmanship of this senator, but they accomplished 
more, they placed Georgia among the foremost in the 
national councils for dignity and influence. Nor was 
his senatorial labor confined to his great speeches. In 
committee and in the departments he worked with energy 
and tact for the interest of his constituents and the ad- 



568 PUBLIC AND PEIVATE CHARITIES. 

vancement of his State, pressing individual claims with 
persistence and industry, and securing valuable appropria- 
tions for our harbors and rivers. His voluminous corre- 
spondence has been promptly answered. All matters 
consigned to his care for the State or individual citizens 
have been attended to with despatch and effectively. 

It will be seen that in the exalted responsibilities of 
United States senator, Governor Brown, as in all other 
trusts, private and public, has not only sustained himself 
fully, but has been conspicuously prominent for his supe- 
riority, placing himself immediately in the front as a 
leader. In the very ripeness of his great faculties, with 
all the conservative wisdom that his Christian maturity 
and experienced statesmanship can give. Senator Brown 
stands to-day in the highest position of public usefulness 
and private distinction that he has ever occupied, and 
holds in his grasp the achievements of lofty service and 
honors for himself, his State, and his country. 

Allusion has been made to his remarkable capacity for 
business which has enabled him to amass a large and 
growing fortune. But with the accumulation of wealth 
there has been an accompanying display of a generous 
and judicious private and public charity. His smaller 
givings have been innumerable. With a heart full of 
kindness and humility, he has ever been touched by suf- 
fering. His greater charities have been munificent and 
varied, and bearing a vast proportion to his means. The 
objects of his liberality are to be seen widely scattered. 
The Sixth Baptist church of Atlanta was the recipient of 
$800 from him to aid in its construction. He donated 
$500 to the Southern Baptist Convention. He gave 
another $500 to assist in the purchase of an organ for the 
Second Baptist church of Atlanta j he contributed $1,000 



GIFT TO THE STATE UNIVERSITY. 569 

to the Georgia Baptist Orphans' Home ; he subscribed 
$ 1 ,000 to Mercer University ; he came forward with a 
timely gift of $3,000 with which to repair and make 
additions to the Second Atlanta Baptist church ; he gave 
two donations of $1,000 each to the Richmond college 
of Virginia ; he has furnished as high as $800 in a single 
year to the payment of his pastor's salary ; he was a con- 
tributor to the erection of St. Luke's Episcopal church in 
Atlanta ; he presented $2,100 for the erection of a parson- 
age for the Second Baptist church ; he has contributed 
liberally to the Christian church, the First Methodist 
church, the St. Phillips church, the Unitarian church, and 
to two or three colored churches in Atlanta. He has 
recently donated $3,500 to the rebuilding of the Kim- 
ball house ; to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 
he gave the magnificent endowment of $53,000. 

His latest large gift was marked by peculiarly touch- 
ing features, exemplifying his charitable spirit and noble 
encouragement of education, and tenderly illustrating the 
warm paternal instincts of his strong nature. The death 
of his cherished son, Charles McDonald Brown, in the 
very beginning of his bright and promising young man- 
hood, from that fell disease, consumption, after an illness 
of two years, proved a deep blow to his heart and was 
the occasion of one of the most beneficent and useful 
benefactions of his public spirit. Desiring to perpetuate 
the memory of this sterling young man in an enduring 
form in connection with a high public purpose, he de- 
termined to give to the State University at Athens 
$50,000 of the portion of his estate to which this son 
would have been entitled, to be used in the education of 
the poor young men of the State. The designs and 
details of this magnificent gift are fully set forth in the 



570 LETTER TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 

following letter of the generous donor, and were sug- 
gested by Senator Brown's own hard experience when he 
was a poor youth struggling to educate himself, and were 
intended to provide a fund for just such cases as his own. 

" Athens, Ga., \ 
July 15, 1882. ]" 

" To the Board of Trustees of the University of Georgia: 

" Gentlemen : — I have had the honor to hold the position of trustee and 
member of your Board for over a quarter of a century. During all this time 
I have felt great interest in the success and prosperity of the university. 

" It has long been my wish to do something which may afford substantial 
aid to it, and result in permanent future good to the people of this State who 
have so long sustained and honored me. I am now in better condition to 
carry out this cherished object than I have been at any time since my con- 
nection with the board. 

"Nearly one year ago my son, Charles McDonald Brown, a noble Chris- 
tian youth, of fine intellectual and business capacity, the soul of honor and 
integrity, who had been a student in the university, was taken from us by 
death. He was named for my true and cherished friend, the late Governor 
Charles J. McDonald. 

" He was possessed of some estate, the bulk of which he left to me and his 
mother, giving small sums to each of his brothers and sisters in token of his 
love and affectionate regard for them. He had bright prospects, and if be 
had lived might reasonably have been expected at no distant day, at my 
death, to go into the possession of a considerable addition to his estate. 

''Now, while it is my object to do something that will advance the inter- 
est of the university and aid to some useful extent in the education of worthy 
young men of the State who are not able to educate themselves ; I desire at 
the same time to perpetuate the name of mj' said deceased son in connection 
with the university, and also that of my old friend. Governor McDonald, 
whose name he bore. As a means of doing this, I propose, with the consent 
of your honorable bodj'', and upon the terms and conditions hereinafter men- 
tioned, to make a donation to the University of fifty thousand dollars — 
money that might hav£ been possessed by my son if he had lived — to be 
known, and in all appropriate publications made by the university, desig- 
nated as ' The Charles McDonald Brown scholarship fund.' 

" This donation to be made on condition that the State of Georgia will 
receive the said sum (which I will pay in cash into her treasury) to be used 
in payment of the public debt, or in such other manner as may be for the 
best interest of the State, and will issue her bond of bonds to the university, 
bearing seven per cent, interest, the interest to be paid semi-annually to the 
university, the bond or obligation to run for fifty years. 



OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. 571 

" At the last session, the General Assembly passed an act to make perma- 
nent the endowment of the university, which provides in substance that 
whenever the trustees of the University of Georgia shall, through their duly 
authorized agent or officer present at the State treasury for redemption any 
valid, matured bond of the State as the property of the university that the 
Governor shall issue to the trustees in lieu of said matured bond, an obliga- 
tion in writing in the nature of a bond, in an amount equal to said matured 
bond, falling due fifty years after date of such issue, the same to bear inter- 
est at the rate of seven per cent, per annum, and not to be subject to be 
called in for redemption by the State before that time, not to be negotiable 
by the trustees but payable to them alone, to be issued under the great seal 
of the State, signed by the governor and countersigned by the secretary of 
state, etc. 

" All I ask is that the State treat the amount which I propose to donate to 
the university, just as she would treat any other amount of money which 
may be the property of the university due at the maturity of any bond or 
bonds of the State belonging to the university. 

"I have loDg thought it the duty of the State to endow the university 
liberally, and believe that wise statesmanship and sound policy dictated such 
a course. While the representatives of the people have not done what it 
seems to me would be wise, in this particular, they have shown a disposition 
to make permanent the endowment which the university possesses, and I 
think it would be only a reasonable extension of this law to make it apply 
to all funds that may be donated to the university, as well as to funds be- 
longing to the university on maturing bonds. I cannot doubt that the Leg- 
islature will see the wisdom and propriety of doing this, and I therefore 
make the donation conditional upon the passage of an act to carry out this 
object in accordance with the rule above mentioned, at the next session of 
the General Assembly ; and upon the further condition that the fund shall 
be used for the purposes, and in the manner hereinafter mentioned. 

*' There are hundreds, and I believe thousands of young men of good char- 
acter in Georgia, who are intellectual and ambitious to become useful, who 
desire to obtain a liberal education ; some with a view to the profession of 
law, others the practice of medicine, and some for the gospel ministry, some 
engineers, architects, chemists, teachers, pi'ofessors in colleges and other use- 
ful and honorable pursuits, some of whom have at their command part of the 
means necessary to board and clothe them, while engaged in the pursuits of 
their studies in connection with the university. Other young men may be 
very bright and very worthy, who have none of the means necessary for 
board and clothing while engaged in their studies. I believe there are many 
young men of both classes mentioned, who would consider it their good fort- 
une to be able to borrow at a reasonable rate of interest a sufficient amount 
to carry them through college, or to enable them to graduate in the particu- 
lar profession or pursuit which they intend to follow, and who would be will- 



572 LETTEE TO THE BOAED OF TEUSTEES 

ing, after they had obtained an education and prepared themselves for busi- 
ness, to refund the money as soon as they could make it after providing for 
their livelihood in an economical manner until they are able to pay it. 

" Such a young man, who takes a proper view of the subject, would not de- 
sire to incur more indebtedness than necessity required. He would be will- 
ing for the sake of obtaining an education to wear plain clothing and be con- 
tent with clieap board, if reasonably good and wholesome. 

" I know from experience in early life the feelings of a youth desirous of 
educating himself without the means to do so ; and the good fortune which a 
loan of money for support while engaged in study was considered as con- 
ferring upon the recipient. I recollect very well, too, that prudence dictated 
an economical course so as to incur no more indebtedness than was actually 
necessary. I preferred to live plainly and cheaply and study hard rather 
than be too much loaded with debt ; but I considered myself very fortunate 
when I was able to borrow the amount actually necessary for the prosecu- 
tion of my studies even to a limited extent. And I doubt not there are at 
this time large numbers of young men in similar situations who are prompted 
by the same feelings. 

" The object of this donation is to establish a fund in the hands of the uni- 
versity the intei-est of which is to be loaned to young men of the character I 
mention. 

" First : To aid in part, such young men as may have some means, but not 
sufficient to carry them through the course selected by them. 

" Secondly : To aid others who have no means, but who are bright and 
worthy and ambitious to succeed. I desire that the university do this by 
loaning the interest which may accrue from the principal each year, to young 
men of the class above mentioned. No young man is to avail himself of the 
benefit of this fund until he is eighteen years of age ; each to sign a pledge of 
honor when he enters the college and commences to receive the fund, that he 
■will refund the amount he receives to the university as soon after he com- 
pletes his course of study as he may be able to make it, living economically 
in the meantime; and as this obligation given during the minority of the 
student would not be legally binding, let him also pledge himself that- when 
twenty-one years of age he will give to the university his obligation legally 
binding for the payment of said sum as aforesaid with four per cent, per an- 
num interest upon the same. 

" As each will incur indebtedness by borrowing the means necessary to edu- 
cate himself, each will become more self-reliant, which will be better for him 
in the end, if he is manly and possesses talent, than if the amount had been 
given him. 

" And as tuition is now free in the university, I direct that not more than 
two hundred dollars per annum shall be loaned to any student, to be ad- 
vanced to him monthly during the scholastic year ; but interest to commence 
to run on the amount advanced on each year at the end of the year. Having 



OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. 573 

no tuition to pay, a young man with close economy may be able to get along 
upon that sum ; and many who have part of the means necessary will not de- 
sii"e so much. 

" I earnestly urge upon each recipient of the fund the importance of pay- 
ing back the money as promptly as possible ; and I trust each will consider 
it a sacred obligation, as the payment increases the amount to be loaned to 
others, who will be anxious to receive the same benefits enjoyed by him- 
self. 

" If there should be a larger number of promising young men apply for the 
benefits of the loan than can be accommodated, then I direct that the trustees 
of the university provide for a selection of recipients from time to time, in 
such manner as in their judgment may be most fair and equitable. My wish 
is that they may be selected as impartially as may be from all parts of the 
State, so that each section may be represented. If there are many applicants 
and it can conveniently be done, I think a competitive examination might be 
best ; but there will, no doubt, be many cases where this cannot be had with- 
out difficulty, and where the young man is very bright and worthy, in which 
case the appointment can very safely be made without a competitive exam- 
ination. 

" I wish such young men selected as are bright, and of good moral charac- 
ter, apt to learn, in reasonable health, and ambitious to prepare themselves 
for usefulness. I do not wish to make a donation to students, but to place a 
fund in the hands of the university which it will loan them in aid of their 
education, to be paid back by them as aforesaid. 

"1 desire the amount paid in by each student in return for the money he 
has received be added annually as it is paid in to the principal sum above 
mentioned, and only the interest upon it to be loaned in future, which will 
from time to time enable the university to increase the number of young men 
to whom it can make loans. This will ultimately increase the amount of prin- 
cipal, which in course of time, if properly managed, will grow to a large 
sum. 

" I trust the Legislature of our noble and beloved State will make provi- 
sion for receiving this accumulation into the treasury from time to time, and 
issue its bonds to the university in lieu of it, as the fund may accumulate. But 
if, contrary to my desire and expectation, the State, after having given its 
obligation for the principal sum of the donation above mentioned, shall at 
any time refuse to issue its bonds for the accumulated fund, or shall, at the 
end of fifty years, refuse to issue its bond or obligation for the principal sum 
of fifty thousand dollars, and shall pay the same over to the university, then 
the board of trustees may in each or either of said cases invest such funds as 
may accumulate, in the bonds of the United States or of other States. 

" The general provisions above mentioned are subject to the following 
qualification : 

*• I desire that the sum of one thousand dollars interest accruing annually 



574 LETTEE TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 

from the said principal sum of fifty thousand dollars, as above mentioned, be 
used by the board of trustees aforesaid to aid young men to pursue their 
studies in the North Georgia Agricultural college at Dahlonega, upon the 
same terms as prescribed for students at the university at Athens, except that 
the students who may participate in the benefit of this fund at Dahlonega 
must be selected under such rules and regulations as the board of trustees of 
the university may prescribe (to be reasonable and just), from the mountain 
counties of northeast Georgia and the counties of Oconee, Pickens and An- 
derson, of South Carolina. Pickens district, now Oconee and Pickens coun- 
ties, contains my birthplace. My life, up to the commencement of my man- 
hood, was spent in the district of my birthplace in South Carolina, and in the 
mountains of northeast Georgia; and the first credit I received for money in 
aid of my education was in the county of Anderson, South Carolina, in which 
Calhoun academy, where I commenced my studies, is located. 

"The mountain section above mentioned was the theatre of my early 
struggle with poverty, in my attempt to educate myself; and I wish to pay 
its people who have sympathized with and supported me in every emergency, 
this small tribute of my grateful recollection. As the amounts loaned stu- 
dents at Dahlonega are returned, I wish them to be added to the principal 
which is set apart out of the sum of fifty thousand dollars donated as above, 
to raise the said sum of one thousand dollars annually for said college at 
Dahlonega, so that it may accumulate as in case of the fund set apart for 
students oE the university at Athens, both being placed upon the same prin- 
ciple of accumulation. 

'' If the North Georgia Agricultural college should at any time be discon- 
tinued, which I trust may never occur, and any other school or college of like 
grade should take its place at Dahlonega or in any of the mountain counties 
of northeast Georgia, that is not denominational in its character, the bene- 
fits intended for the North Georgia Agricultural college at Dahlonega are to 
be transferred to the students of such college or high school as may be se- 
lected by the board of trustees of the State university, to take its place in 
said section of country. 

" If, unfortunately, there should be at any time in the future no such 
school kept in said section of northeast Georgia, for as much as five years, 
then the fund set apart for that purpose shall be transferred to the university 
at Athens, and become part of the fund, to be expended in aid of the stu- 
dents there in the manner and on the terms already mentioned. 

" If there should be any year when there are not enough applicants for the 
fund, of good moral character and promise, to consume the amount of inter- 
est accruing during that year, the accrued interest not so used is to be added 
to the principal and placed at interest to be applied to the purposes already 
designated. 

" In case of the fund to be loaned to young men at Dahlonega, as living is 
cheaper than at Athens, I direct that not more than one hundred and fifty 



OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. 575 

dollars annually be loaned to any young man, while engaged in the pursuit 
of his studies, to be paid to him monthly, the interest for each to commence 
at the end of the year. The amount in each case may seem small, but a young 
man without means, who is not willing to live economically to secure an edu- 
cation; or who is willing to go in debt to obtain larger means to be expended 
in better living or for greater display at college, is not, in my opinion, the 
person most likely to succeed, or most worthy to be trusted with funds which 
he is expected to return. 

" Any young man who pursues his studies for the purpose of preparing 
himself for the ministry in any of the churches, and who, after the comple- 
tion of his studies, devotes his time and talent under authority of his church 
to the work of the ministry as his profession or business, shall onljj be re- 
quired to return to the university one half the amount received by him with 
interest as aforesaid. 

" Any young man studying to prepare himself for the profession of medi- 
cine, may pursue his studies at Augusta, where the medical department of 
the university is located. 

" No part of the fund herein mentioned shall at any time be paid as fees, 
commissions, salary or otherwise to the trustees or any officer or agent of the 
trustees. 

" As the fund is donated to aid poor but worthy young men to secure a 
liberal education, I have full confidence that the trustees and officers of the 
university, with whom I have acted so long, and their successors will, as here- 
tofore in all cases connected with their trust, administer this as part of the 
funds of the university for the good of all, for the usual salaries which the 
officers would receive if no such fund existed. 

" If it should at any time become necessary to employ counsel to collect 
money due from any one who borrowed it as a student, and is able to pay it 
back and who refuses to do so, then it will be expected that the usual fees be 
paid to such counsel, and some attorney might, in such case, be employed to 
look generally after such collections, and see that the university dots not suf- 
fer loss by inattention to such collection. 

" I reserve to my four sons, Julius L. Brown, and Joseph M. Brown, Elijah 
A. Brown, and George M. Brown, each the right to select one young niiin to 
receive the benefits of the loan and, as the one selected graduates or leaves 
college, to select a successor, so that each may constantly during his natural 
life keep one student of his own selection in the university, as a recipient of 
the use of the funds necessary in his case, subject to the regulations above 
specified, and in case any one or each of my sons shall select a kinsman 
as near to him as the fourth degree of consanguinity, such student shall have 
the beueiit of the fund free from the obligations to refund it to the university, 
if my said son so direct, all other selections to be made under the rules and 
regulations to be prescribed by the board of trustees, as already men- 
tioned. 



576 EESOLUTIONS OF ACCEPTANCE. 

" And my said sons and the survivors or survivor of them shall have all the 
usual rights of visitation, vpith power to see that the trust assumed by the 
board of trustees in behalf of the university is justly and faithfully adminis- 
tered, and, in case the trust is unjustly, illegally or wrongfully abused, to pro- 
ceed in the proper court to recover back the funds for the use of my legal 
heirs; but neither my heirs nor any one of them shall have the right to re- 
cover back the said fund on account of any technical or inadvertent failure 
to carry out the trust, if there has not been an important or substantial fail- 
ure to do so. 

" The survivor of my said four sons may by his will appoint some one with 
like power of visitation, if he thinks proper to do so. 

» "Joseph E. Beown." 

Gov. Brown's letter was referred to a special commit- 
tee of the board, who reported in favor of the acceptance 
of the gift. 

" Report of the committee unanimously adopted. 

'' The select committee to whom was referred the communication of Hon- 
orable Joseph E. Brown to the board of trustees, made this day proposing a 
donation to the university of fifty thousand dollars on certain terms and con- 
ditions therein expressed, have duly considered the same and beg leave to re- 
port the following : 

" Resolved, That the proposition of Honorable Joseph E. Brown to the 
board of trustees of the University of Georgia, made this day, be accepted 
upon the terms and condition therein expressed. 

" Resolved 2d, That this board, for themselves and in behalf of the peo- 
ple of Georgia, tender their thanks to him for this munificent donation. 

"Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by the president of this 
board to make known to the donor the action of the board upon the proposi- 
tion to present the matter to the next Legislature, and ask that an act be 
passed carrying it into effect, and to see that the papers are recorded accord- 
ing to his request. " Alexander H. Stephens, 

G. F. Pierce, 
Ar R. Lawton, 
D. A. Vason, 

J. A. BiLLUPS." 

Obligation of Governor Brown. 

" The board of trustees of the university having by resolution accepted my 
proposition to donate to the university fifty thousand dollars to be known as 
'The Charles McDonald Brown Scholarship Fund,' subject to the condi- 
tions mentioned in my communication of this date, I hereby bind myself, 



INCREDIBLE OPPOSITION. 577 

my heirs, executors and administrators to pay into the treasury of the State 
of Georgia for the benefit of the university, subject to the terms mentioned 
in my said communication, the sum of fifty thousand dollars in cash so soon 
as the Legislature of the State, at its next session, shall have passed an act 
binding the State to receive the funds and give her obligation to the uni- 
versity for the said fund payable fifty years after this date, with semi-annual ' 
interest at the rate of seven per cent, per annum. And I desire the commu- 
nication, resolution of acceptance, and this Obligation recorded on the regu- 
lar minutes of the board of trustees, and in the office of the clerk of the 
superior court of Clarke county, Georgia, for preservation. 

"Joseph E. Brown." 

" Executed in the presence of IL V. M. Miller, president pro tern. 

" William L. Mitchell, secretary. 

" James Jackson, chief justice of supreme court of Georgia." 

Incredible as it may seem, this munificent act of large- 
hearted and noble-motived benevolence, inspired by a 
pathetic bereavement, framed with a consummate wisdom 
to accomplish good, giving material aid to the great cause 
of higher education, and placing our venerable Mother 
University of Georgia upon its feet in a period of lan- 
guor, met with opposition at the hands of a small portion 
of the citizens of the State, who were politically hostile to 
the generous donor. A few vigorous jeremiads were put 
out in one or two hostile journals and several speeches 
were made against it in the Legislature. Constitutional 
scruples were raised. It seemed strange and foolish for 
intelligent men to be erecting argumentative obstacles in 
the way of a valuable State benefaction. It was a poor 
compensation to worthy young men for the loss of edu- 
cational facilities tendered them to hear the law makers 
split hairs and raise quibbles over a grand benefit. The 
objections seemed puerile to the great masses of the peo- 
ple who saw in the act an exalted piece of disinterested 
philanthropy, a timely help to the State University, a 
liberal benefaction to the poor youth of Georgia, and a 

splendid contribution to the cause of education. 
37 



578 LETTEE TO COLONEL ESTILL. 

The* bill to accept the donation failed in the House of 
Representatives to receive the constitutional majority of 
eio"htv-eight votes. Perhaps no more complete answer 
could be made to the feeble objections to the superb gift 
than the following letter of Senator Brown to Col. J. H. 
Estill of Savannah, in reply to one from that gentleman 
on the subject. 

" Washington, January 3. 
" COL. J. H. ESTILL, Savannah, Ga. 

" Dear Sir : — In reply to your letter calling my attention to the objections 
that have been made to the terms upon which I proposed to make a donation 
of $50,000 to the University for the purpose of aiding poor young men to 
obtain a liberal education, I have to state that the hard school of adversity 
through which I had to pass in the days of my youth, and the great difficulty 
I had in raising the means to secure what education I received, caused me 
naturally to sympathize with young men who are placed in the situation I 
then occupied. And as it was my wish to do something to aid the cause of 
education, I did not see any other use to which the fund might be so profit- 
ably applied. 

" Many of the brightest and most promising young men in Georgia are 
the sons of the poorest parents of the State. Others have parents in moder- 
ate circumstances, but with large families, who are entirely unable to give 
their children a liberal education. The wealthy, whose sons have the means 
to go to college, possess great advantage over this worthy class of bright and 
most promising young men, whose parents have not the means to educate 
them and who have not the means to educate themselves. Many of these 
would make leading men in the State and ornaments to society if in early life 
they could borrow money enough, with close economy, to educate themselves. 
My observation has been, as a rule, that that class of men are the most energetic 
and likely to be the most useful. With sincere sympathy with this class, and 
a desire to place them nearer than heretofore upon an equality with the sons 
of the rich in the advantages they so much need, I determined to contribute 
of my means as liberally as I felt in condition to do, to establish a fund, the 
income of which should be perpetually devoted to that character of educa- 
tion, upon a basis that the money borrowed by young men and paid back 
by them should constantly increase the fund, so that in the lifetime of the 
University it would grow to be a sum large enough to reach all the poor young 
men of the State desiring it. 

" In addition, however, to this view of the subject, it is due to candor that 
I state that I had lost a most promising son, who had just reached man- 
hood, and who had been a student at the State University ; who, if he had 



LETTER TO COLOXEL ESTILL. 579 

lived, would have inherited the money that I proposed to donate to the Uni- 
versity. And I had a desire — which, if founded in a mistaken^ view of the 
subject, I trust was a pardonable mistake — to perpetuate the name of my 
beloved son, now no more in this world, in connection with this fund. 

" The question then presented itself to my mind, are there any constitu- 
tional difficulties in the way ? and I looked carefully into the provisions of 
our State Constitution, and satisfied myself, beyond all doubt, that there were 
none. In the first place, I found that the whole scope 'and spirit of the 
instrument is intended to encourage the Legislature, and even the counties 
and municipal corporations, in making appropriations for the education of the 
people, first in the primary branches, and then to encourage the State Uni- 
versity, and a university or college for the colored people. In connection 
with this general scope and object of the Constitution, I find that those who 
framed it intended to encourage citizens of the State, or of other States, to 
make donations for the purpose of education. The language of the Consti- 
tution under that head is, ' The trustees of the University of Georgia may 
accept bequests, donations and grants of land or other property for the use 
of said university.' In providing that the trustees may accept bequests or 
donations, it certainly intended to encourage citizens of the State or other 
liberal minded men to make to the university such bequests or donations. 

" I did not feel, therefore, that it would be the policy of the State, if I 
tendered a donation of this sort, to reject it, but supposed it would be the 
policy of the representatives of the people to accept ; and, on any terms that 
were reasonable, to encourage not only that but like donations from liberal 
citizens. Taking this view of the subject, I naturally concluded that in con- 
struing sections or paragraphs of the Constitution that might be considered 
as limitations upon the power of the Legislature in taxing the people and 
appropriating money, or incurring debts by the State, that a liberal construc- 
tion should be put upon such paragraphs in favor of common school educa- 
tion, in favor of appropriations to the University, and in favor of encourage- 
ment of bequests or donations to it. In this view of it, if I had found 
language that was doubtful as to the right of the State to accept a donation 
upon the terms proposed, I should still have believed that it was the duty of 
the members of the Legislature to put a liberal construction on the instru- 
ment to meet such a case, and to encourage such an endowment. But I find 
no such difficulty in the Constitution. It is true I find limitations as to the 
right to issue bonds, or to incur indebtedness on the part of the State, but 
they do not deny to the Stafe the power to incur a debt in a case like the one 
now under consideration. 

" When I looked to paragraph 1, article 7, section 3, of the Constitution, 
I found this language : ' Xo debt fhall be contracted by or on behalf of the 
State, except to supply casual deficiencies of revenue, to repel invasion, sup- 
press insurrection, and defend the State in time of war, or to pay the exist- 
ing public debt ; but the debt created to supply deficiencies in the public 
reveime shall not exceed in the aggregate two hundred thousand dollars.' 



580 LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL. 

" Here, among other things, the power is given to incur a debt to supply 
the casual deficiencies in the revenue which does not aggregate more than 
two hundi-ed thousand dollars, or a debt may be contracted to pay the exist- 
ing public debt. 

"Now, as is well known, we have a debt of some nine millions of dollars. 
Portions of it are falling due frequently. In a short period more than three 
millions of it will fall due in the same year. Nobody expects that the peo- 
ple of Georgia will be taxed three millions to pay a debt coming due that 
year. How shall we meet it? We shall doubtless issue new bonds and 
exchange them for the maturing bonds, or put them on the market and sell 
them and get money with which to pay the maturing bonds. Does anybody 
hold that the State is obliged to tax the people to pay every obligation as it 
falls due ? If so, why the exception to the rule giving to the Legislature the 
right to contract a debt to pay the existing public debt ? It seems to me 
that is too clear for argument. 

" The Hon. N. J. Hammond, Chairman of the Committee appointed by the 
Board of the Trustees of the University, drew the bill that was before the Legis- 
lature with great care, after all the able lawjers on the Board of Trustees, 
except General Toombs, had approved the donation on the terms prescribed. 
The bill required the money to be put into the treasury and to be paid out 
to the maturing bonds of the State, and a new bond or obligation to be given 
to the University to run for fifty years, bearing seven per cent, interest. How 
did this violate the Constitution ? It might possibly have had to lie in the 
treasury awhile before any bonds matured in the payment of w.hich it could 
be used. But as soon as fifty thousand dollars of the bonds did mature, why 
might it not have been used in the payment of these bonds, and a new bond 
or obligation given to the University for it? By what fine-spun distinction 
can the right of the Legislature to accept money for the benefit of the Uni- 
versity and give a new bond, and the right of the Legislature to accept money 
from anybody wanting to purchase a bond and issue a new bond, be main- 
tained where the object in both cases is to pay the money to the public 
creditor ? 

" But it has been said the rate of interest is too high. The State could 
borrow money at four per cent. It is true, when she issued what are called 
her baby bonds, at four per cent., paying commission for the sale, as I have 
been informed, they were disposed of. But it was mostly to corporations 
that used them, by paying them back to the State for railroad property pur- 
chased, etc. It would be a strain upon the public credit of Georgia that her 
citizens might not care to see, to place her four per cent, bonds on the mar- 
ket in the present condition of things. But I suppose no constitutional 
lawyer will deny that the State has the right to issue bonds for money 
received and used in payment of maturing bonds, or that the Legislature 
has the right to fix the rate of interest, and that it might legally in 
such case be fixed at seven per cent. That is the rate of interest fixed in 



LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL. 581 

Georgia between man and man, where there is no contract varying it. That 
is precisely the rate of interest fixed in the law now upon the statute book, 
where the State bonds held by the University are maturing. The law pro- 
vides in such case that the Governor shall take up the maturing bonds and 
issue new bond or obligation to the University running fifty years, at seven 
per cent., payable semi-annually. 

" I looked at the law, which I found upon our own statute books as apph- 
cable to the University, and placed my proposed donation upon precisely the 
same terms. I simply said, as you take up the maturing bonds of the Uni- 
versity, and give new bonds at fifty years at seven per cent, semi-annu- 
ally, I will add fifty thousand dollars to the endowment if you will take that 
sum and give the bond or obligation of the State running for the same time, 
at the same rate of interest which you pay the University in new bonds, on 
all State bonds which she may hold as fast as they mature. Was this 
unreasonable? Why should the State refuse to pay the same rate of inter- 
est on money (which I give the University) which she pays on money re- 
ceived from the land grant fund? 

"Again, suppose the Legislature could borrow money at five per cent, and 
issue bonds of the State in payment, and suppose any other citizen than 
myself were to point to the provisions in the Constitution which relate to the 
encouragement of education and to the encouragement of the University for 
the white as well as for the colored race, and to the encouragement of dona- 
tions ; and such citizen were to say, ' I will give you f 50,000 to aid in the 
education of a most worthy class of young men who have always been denied 
the benefits of a liberal education, which $50,000 you could not borrow for 
less than five per cent., if you will give a seven per cent, bond, contributing 
two per cent, out of the treasury to aid that class of young men, and to ad- 
vance the objects contemplated by the Constitution.' Think you the Legis- 
lature would have rejected a proposition put in that shape from any liberal 
citizen not in public life, who might have made the tender, even if there had 
been no statute, and no law on the statute book prescribing the rate of in- 
terest which the State allows on her maturing bonds to aid the University ? 
How could the Legislature do so much in aid of the University for so small 
a sum in any other way as it could by adding two per cent, to the rate of 
interest at which it could borrow money on all donations that might be made 
to the University ? In such case the donor furnishes the capital, and, in 
effect, pays to the University the five per cent, per annum which the money 
would be unquestionably worth, and the State pays only two per cent, on the 
money without furnishing a dollar of the capital, a very small proportion. 
The University in this way would produce wonderful results for the future, 
at a nominal cost to the State, if donations could be secured on these terms. 

" However, I simply claim in this case that as my donation is admitted to 
be a liberal one, the State should, in my opinion, have taken it for the bene- 
fit of the class of poor young men for whom it was intended, and at the same 



582 LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL. 

rate of interest that she pays on other funds belonging to the University, 
■which accrue from her maturing bonds owned by the University. Why make 
a distinction between the interest the State will pay on my donation and the 
interest it will pay on other funds due the University? Is that the way to 
encourage others to make liberal donations to the University to aid in the 
cause of education ? Experience will soon show whether it affords such 
encouragement. 

" The sons of wealthy men have so long had the advantage and received 
the chief benefits of the University that it may be thought by part of that 
class and their representatives that it is an innovation to open a way for the 
brightest class of the sons of the poor. If my donation had provided for bet- 
ter facilities for the sons of the wealthy, it might have met a different fate 
at the hands of some of those who sat in judgment upon its merits. 

" But a word more on the subject of interest. If I were simply seeking 
popular applause, what need I care whether the State paid seven per cent, or 
four per cent, on the moneys ? In either case I would have given the fifty 
thousand dollars to the University, and in neither case would a dollar of 
principal or interest come back to me. The only question was, whether the 
poor young men should have the benefit of the larger or smaller rate of inter- 
est. In the one case, the fund would have educated a larger and in the other 
a smaller number of those for whose benefit it was intended. 

" But it is proper to notice one other point. Objection was made that I 
appointed my sons visitors, as the law would term it. In other words, that I 
reserved to them the right to see, during their lifetime, and to the survivor 
of them, the right to name in his will a person who may see in his lifetime 
that the money is not squandered or recklessly wasted. Or, in other words, 
that the trust is carried out and the money applied to the uses for which it is 
given. That is all the right of visitation means. As every one acquainted 
with such matters knows, it is one of the most common provisions in case of 
donations made to colleges wherever the English language is spoken. In the 
English colleges, even the endowment of a scholarship is usually accom- 
panied by such provisions against waste or misapplication of the fund. In 
that country the rector of a parish, or some person or corporation where there 
is perpetual succession, is frequently made the visitor. In my case I only 
proposed that the right of visitation, or the right to look after the fund and 
see that it is not squandered or misapplied, last for two lifetimes. The life- 
time of the University runs through centuries, therefore, in comparison with 
the whole term for which the donation would run, the right of visitation is 
reserved for but a fractional period. And then only for a substantial violation 
of the trust, not on account of any technical error or unintentional mistake. 

" This is only securing to my sons, by direct reservation, what the com- 
mon law, as expounded by the ablest authors, gives to the heirs of every 
founder who endows a college, to wit : the right in case of a substantial 
failure to carry out the trust, or a gross or wilful misapplication of the fund, 



LETTER TO COLOKEL ESTILL. 683 

to call the persons whose duty it is to execute the trust to account in the 
courts. Who will deny the justice and proj)riety of such a provision for the 
preservation and protection of the fund, and to secure its appropriation to 
the uses for which it is given ? 

" But it is complained that I reserved to my four sons, during the lifetime 
of each, the right to select one young man who is to have the benefits of the 
donation. One of the principal troubles the Board of Trustees will have 
will be in the proper selection of the young men who are to be benefited. 
As the fund accumulates it would during the lifetime of the University run 
into millions of dollars, and there would be two or three times as many poor 
young men enjoying the benefits as there are now students in the University. 
But even during the lifetime of my sons, it might run to fifty or one hundred 
a year. Was it unreasonable to say that each of them might select one ? 
Or, if it run to only twenty a year at the commencement, was it unreasonable, 
as I gave the money, that each of my sons select one of them ? If I had re- 
tained the money as a part of my estate, it is reasonable to suppose that they 
would have inherited it at my death. Therefore, each is to that extent a 
part contributor, and the reservation of the right of each to select one of the 
beneficiaries seems to me to be reasonable. No matter how large the fund 
grows, or how large the number of beneficiaries, they would each still have 
the right to select only one. If the number reached one hundred, and my 
sons were all in life, they would select four and the trustees ninety-six. If 
two of them should be dead, the survivors would select two and the trustees 
ninety-eight. 

" But another provision is objected to, and that is, that in case the person 
selected is a relative, my son may, in his disci'etion, relieve him from paying 
the money back. Whether this would have ever occuri'ed in a single instance 
is very doubtful. There might have arisen a case where a relative might 
have been educated under the provision, and, on account of some misfortune, 
it might have been their pleasure to relieve him from the repayment of the 
money, with the four per cent, interest, as required of other young men. 
But as the object of this donation is to make worthy young men who are poor 
feel that they are not charity scholars, but in an independent, manly way that 
they are borrowing money to educate themselves, it would be neither my 
wish nor the wish of my sons to relieve a relative from the repayment, unless 
in some case of affliction or misfortune. And in the case of some one selected 
by the trustees, not a relative, there would probably occasionally be a failure 
to return the money to the University. 

" Again, suppose some of the relatives of my sons should be educated out of 
the fund, would it not be reasonable to suppose that as educated citizens they 
woiild be as serviceable to the State as young men not related to us or se- 
lected by them who might be educated in the same way ? And as it would be 
done with money donated by me,who would be wronged, as ten, probably fifty, 
not related would get the benefit for every one of my relatives who received it ? 



584 LETTER TO COLONEL ESTILL. 

" But it has been said the act was intended to give to my sons some sort of 
advantage or political ascendency in Georgia. How could this be ? The 
three who are of age are all settled down in regular profitable business pursuits. 
No one of them has shown the slightest disposition to engage in politics, and 
it is not probable they ever will. But if they should, what advantage would 
the fact that I had given $50,000 to the University, and that they have the 
right to see that it is not recklessly squandered or wasted, be to them in 
political life ? The idea is simply absurd. I leave the country to judge of 
the motives of those who make such groundless appeals to popular prejudice, 
or to what they doubtless suppose to be popular ignorance. 

" One other point. It is objected that I give some advantages in the selec- 
tion of beneficiaries to the young men of the mountain section of our State, 
including three counties in South Carolina, which contain my birthplace, and 
the place where I had my earliest struggles with poverty in my effort to edu- 
cate myself. It may be true that the feeling of love and veneration we, 
cherish for our birthplace, and the scenes of our youth and companions of 
childhood are mere sentiment. Be it so. It is a sentiment that finds a lodg- 
ment in every generous nature, and a response in every patriotic heart — a 
sentiment which I shall cherish to the latest moment of my life, and upon 
which I shall delight to act on every appropriate occasion. 

" Again, it has been said the State does not wish to borrow money from 
me at seven per cent. 

" I do not wish to lend any to the State. I only proposed to donate to the 
University $50,000 to aid poor but bright and worthy young men in obtain- 
ing such education as they need and wish at the University and at its branch 
at Dahlonega, if the State would take the money and use it in payment of 
hfer maturing debt, and pay to the University (not to me) the same rate of 
interest which by her own statute she binds herself to pay for fifty years, on 
all her bonds now owned by the University, as fast as they mature. Not a 
dollar of the principal or interest, if the donation were accepted, is to be paid 
back to me, or to any child or children of mine. Every dollar of it is to be 
expended in the education of young men in the State, which would result in 
incalculable benefit to the State. It could result in no moi-e personal benefit 
to me or my children than to any other citizen of the State. The right of 
visitation to see that the fund is not wasted, but applied to the uses for which 
it is given, is reserved to my sons, and the right during the life of each to 
select one of the young men to be educated is also reserved. This is all. 
Not a dollar of pecuniary benefit is reserved to me or to them. Not a dol- 
lar of the money is to be returned to us. Not a dollar is to be loaned to the 
State by me or them. Fifty thousand dollars was offered as a gift to the 
University, if the State would take it and pay the same interest she pays 
for other funds belonging to the University. 

" However, I have made this letter longer than I intended. I wish you to 
understand fully my view of this question. If I was actuated by any 



LEGISLATIVE ACTION CONDEMNED. 585 

unworthy motive I am not aware of it. I of course regret that the House of 
Representatives feel it its daty, no matter by what motives prompted, to 
reject the donation, as I had hoped it would result in great benefit to the 
mass of the people whose sons are now excluded from the benefits of a liberal 
education. It is still my fixed purpose to appropriate that sum to the very 
object contemplated in the proposition to the University and Legislature. I 
intend to do so either in or out of the State, upon as nearly the exact plan 
as possible, simply because I think the plan is right in itself. It is true I 
shall regret it, if the action of the repx-esentatives of the people denies to the 
sons of the class of people for whom it was intended, this benefit, and com- 
pels me to give it to the young men of that class in another State, when I 
would greatly prefer that our own young men who so much need it, should 
have the benefit. 

" I beg to assure you I do not feel hurt personally at the action of the 
Legislature. I believe, on calm reflection, after they have consulted their 
constituents, possibly the representatives of the people wfto voted against 
accepting the donation may realize the fact that they have made a mistake. 
Taking the mildest view of it, I do not think it can be claimed that their 
action will have a tendency to encourage other like donations to the Uni- 
versity, or to those struggling to obtain such education as is taught in any 
department of the University which fits them for the profession or business 
in life which they expect to follow. 

"I have written the above that my own views and motives in this matter 
may be fully understood. I shall engage in no discussion — no controversy. 
I have said all I expect to say. I cannot importune the people or their repre- 
sentatives to accept a large sum of money as a gift from me for a purpose 
or in a manner which they do not approve. Each citizen of the State who 
feels enough interest in the subject to look into the facts will form his own 
conclusions as to the propriety of my course in the premises, and as to the 
wisdom of the act rejecting the donation. 

" Possibly the application of the constitutional test to some other acts and 
resolutions of the Legislature as compared with the constitutional scruples 
which prevented the passage of the act to accept my donation- might not be 
uninteresting to the public. But as I decline controversy, I shall not enter 
upon the comparison, nor shall I inquire into the motives which prompted 
action in either case. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" Joseph E. Brown." 

It must have been a temptation to any man to forego 
a generous purpose so unkindly treated. The public 
sentiment, however, began to speak in thunder tones in 
condemnation of the legislative action, showing that 



586 NOT TO BE THWARTED. 

the cavilling of a few croakers was not the feeling of the 
people who warmly appreciated the philanthropical act. 
But Senator Brown is not the man to be thwarted in his 
charities any more than in his business or politics. He 
has always a habit of grasping victory at an unexpected 
moment when his adversaries are in the very repose of 
fancied triumph, and by some cool, easy stroke achieve 
success so complete as to take the breath away. 

The following letter of his to the trustees of the State 
University explains the new movement that he made, viz. : 
the purchase of the bonds and their tender to the institu- 
tion. This movement demonstrated that he was sincere 
in his generous intent and that he had both falsified and 
circumvented his objectors. 

" Atlanta, March 31, 1883. 
" To the Trustees of the University of Georgia : 

" Gentlemen : — On the 15th of July last I proposed in a written communi- 
cation addressed to you to make a donation to the university of fifty thousand 
dollars for the purpose, and upon the terms and conditions therein mentioned. 
One of the requirements of the proposition was, that the Legislature of Georgia 
at its next session should provide for receiving said sum into the treasury of 
the State, and for the issuance of fifty thousand dollars of the bonds of the 
State to the university in place of said amount, having fifty years to run 
with seven per cent, interest payable semi-annually. The Legislature met at 
the usual time in November and adjourned without having made provision 
for the receipt of the money and the issue of said bonds to the university. 
The proposition was accepted by your honorable body when made by me, 
but as the Legislature did not make provisions for issuing the bonds I sup- 
pose neither party is now bound by the proposition or acceptance. 

" It is still my desire to appropriate that sum of money for the education 
of poor young men in the University of Georgia, as specified in said proposi- 
tion. And with a view of avoiding all misunderstanding on the subject and 
of placing this amount in the hands of the trustees of the university, for the 
purposes above referred to, I have purchased fifty thousand dollars of the 
valid bonds of the State of Georgia, which are not now due but will mature 
on the first day of April, 1883, and I propose now to deliver said fifty thou- 
sand dollars in the above bonds of the State of Georgia to the trustees of the 
University of Georgia, as the property of said university, for the same uses 



A LIVELY EPISODE. 587 

and upon precisely the same terms, except as herein modified, as are set forth 
in my written communication to this board, dated 15th of July last, the said 
bonds on delivery to this board to become the property of the university for the 
uses and upon the terms above mentioned, upon the condition subsequent that 
the trustees of the university shall within a reasonable time, say within two 
months from the maturity of the bonds, through their duly authorized agent 
or ofiicer, present at the treasury of the State for redemption the said bonds 
as the property of the university, and shall receive from the Governor of the 
State, in lieu of said matured bonds so presented for payment, an obligation 
or obligations in writing in the nature of a bond in amount equal to the 
principal of the bonds, so presented as provided in an Act to make perma- 
nent the income of the University of Georgia and for other purposes, approved 
September 20, 1881, 

" This will place the bonds, which I now propose to donate to the university 
through this board, upon the same footing precisely as all other bonds of the 
State belonging to the university are placed by the Act of 1881. I have the 
bonds now present ready for delivery if this proposition is accepted. 

"Joseph E. Brown." 

Senator Brown in the purchase of these bonds had to 
pay a large sum of premium, which made the donation, 
so far as he was concerned, much larger than the ^50,000. 
The trustees of the university assembled, and, with the 
single dissenting vote of General Robert Toombs, accepted 
the bonds. Quite a lively episode occurred in the Board. 
General Toombs spoke against the acceptance of the 
bonds, claiming it unconstitutional. Senator Brown asked 
him if he had not taken position before this that under 
the new Constitution the Legislature had power to borrow 
money to donate to the universitj^-. General Toombs 
replied promptly in the negative. Senator Brown ad- 
monished him to think carefully, and asked if that had 
not been his position. General Toombs insisted that it was 
not and had not been. Senator Brown drew a letter from 
his pocket, written by General Toombs, which he explained 
had come into his possession under the following circum- 
stances : Mr. Elam Alexander had made a gift of money 
to the trustees, to be used for educational purposes under 



588 GEN". TOOMBS m A FALSE POSITIOiN". 

the act of 1859, which authorized the governor to receive 
the money into the treasury and issue bonds in lieu of 
it. Colonel Whittle, one of the trustees, was in doubt 
whether he could pay the money into the treasury and 
get the bonds, or whether the Constitution of 1877 re- 
pealed the law of 1859 under which the bonds asked for 
could be issued ; and he sought the opinion of several 
leading gentlemen, among them General Toombs. Colonel 
Whittle then sent three of these responses, including that 
of General Toombs, to Senator Brown, requesting his 
view of the matter. Senator Brown wrote indorsing the 
issuance of the bonds ; and as the subject was one of 
public importance and General Toombs' letter an em- 
phatic one, he had taken copies of the three letters, 
which he expressed the desire to retain if it was not 
deemed inappropriate by Colonel Whittle that he should 
do so. As no objection w^as made by Colonel Whittle, 
the copies were still in his possession. Senator Brown 
continued his remarks before the Board, stating that he 
should not feel at liberty to read the letter if General 
Toombs objected, at the same time he w^ould do so if 
General Toombs was willing. 

General Toombs replied curtly to read anything he 
had written. The letter was read and made a sensation, 
containing as it did a decided opinion that the Constitu- 
tion of 1877 did not repeal the law of 1859, and that the 
governor could issue a bond for the Alexander donation. 
The letter also contained the distinct statement that the 
Legislature had the right, under the Constitution of 1877, 
to borrow money to donate to the university. In view 
of the questions and answers that had preceded the pro- 
duction of the letter, its reading created a decided sen- 
sation in the Board. The letter placed General Toombs 



A TWOFOLD BENEFIT. 589 

of the past against General Toombs of the present, and 
his faiUire to remember his former attitude made his 
present position all the weaker, and entirely nulhfied his 
argument. The trustees voted for the acceptance of the 
bonds; thirteen for and one — General Toombs — against. 
After the bonds fell due the trustees applied to Gov. Jas. 
S. Boynton for the new security, and on the eighteenth 
day of April, 1883, that Executive issued a single bond 
for $50,000 at seven per cent, interest, due in fifty years, 
under the act of 1881 ; which was the precise thing asked 
by Governor Brown when he tendered the cash donation 
to the university. The bond was written on parchment. 
There were already fifty or sixty young men applying 
for the benefits of the fund. Governor Stephens took a 
profound interest in this gift and looked forward to it as 
the means of incalculable good, and as the operation on a 
large scale of his own life-long system of educational aid to 
young men. 

The more that this plan of Senator Brown to aid the 
university is considered, the wiser does its philosophy 
appear. There is a twofold benefit in it, to the benefi- 
ciaries and the university, that could not be realized 
under, and that gives it infinite superiority over, an ordi- 
nary donation. The young men who get education under 
it do so in a manner that fosters their independence and 
requires them to treat their schooling as a debt to be 
repaid and not a charity. The moral effect is much 
better upon their characters, and induces the spirit of 
pride of sentiment, and a habit of self-denial to get the 
means to repay obligation, and the self-respect due to 
self-reliance, the honorable freedom from burden, and the 
proud consciousness that success is due to their own 
labor. 



590 A LASTING MONUMENT. 

The advantage of this scheme to the university over 
all other possible plans of endowment is that the repay- 
ment of the interest loaned to the students steadily in- 
creases the principal of the fund and enlarges the useful- 
ness of the institution. It was certainly a sagacious and 
far-seeing brain and heart that devised a plan so master- 
fully promotive of the interest of both student and col- 
lege, — a plan so original and perfect in conception and 
detail, that the thoughtful mind is amazed that any pre- 
judice could have found objection to it. As time passes 
and the State becomes perm"^ated with the educated 
beneficiaries of this grand gift, — men of education and 
influence, — and as the university grows in its expanding 
capacity for educating the poor but intellectual and aspir- 
ing youth of Georgia, trained, by this very ordeal to get 
and pay for learning, to the discipline that makes good 
steady men, the wisdom and benevolence of the author 
of this noble scheme, and his fame as a public-spirited 
philanthropist, will broaden and brighten, resting upon 
the enduring basis of truth and the public welfxre. Sen- 
ator Brown has erected in this superb educational endow- 
ment a lasting monument to his young son, whose name 
it bears, so sadly removed, and to his own genius and 
philanthropy. And he can safely repose upon this sub- 
stantial ground his claim to the permanent and grateful 
remembrance of the people of Georgia. 

This volume may properly end with this splendid inci- 
dent. It may be proper, however, to refer to the excep- 
tional position that Senator Brown occupies in relation to 
the distinguished public men of Georgia. Twenty years 
ago the State had a larger array of great political leaders 
than any State in the Union. Those illustrious spirits, 
recognized giants in eloquence and statesmanship, have 



SYMBOL AND LINK OF THREE ERAS. 591 

recently passed away almost in a body. The old land- 
marks have disappeared rapidly. Ilerschel V. Johnson, 
Iliram Warner, Benjamin H. Hill, Alexander H. Stephens 
and Charles J. Jenkins — five of our strongest Georgians, 
men of national fame and contemporaries of Joseph E. 
Brown in the great events of the last two decades — have 
one by one gone in a brief while. Senator Brown has 
aided in the funeral obsequies of nearly all of these emi- 
nent sons of Georgia. With Mr. Stephens he was closely 
allied by links of friendly affection, and at his burial 
Senator Brown dehvered a beautiful and feeling eulogy. 

Of the older leaders of a quarter of a century ago but 
two remain, General Robert Toombs and Senator Joseph 
E. Brown. General Toombs is about to retire from pub- 
lic life. It is announced probably by authority that he 
is to give up business entirely. Senator Brown is, there- 
fore, the sole active survivor of the grand galaxy of 
shining historic luminaries that made Georgia so power- 
ful and so famous in the majestic events that preceded, 
constituted and followed the greatest civil war of human 
history. He is the connecting link with a momentous 
past, and yet the most potential representative that the 
State now has of the most vigorous and progressive 
statesmanship of the present. Of the generation of 
younger men, filling active public life, he is the admitted 
leader. What a position for any man to occupy, illustri- 
ous exponent of past, present, and future — type of the 
highest fame, and public service of all — symbol and link 
of the three eras in their most valuable public distinc- 
tion! 

It is a strange physical fact as typical of a curious in- \ 
ner philosophy that Senator Brown, who in early and 
middle life was a very plain person, has become a hand- 



592 A CAHEER OF INCREASING LUSTRE. 

some old gentleman. He has gained some fulness, which 
always adds comeliness to a spare person, and his flowing 
white beard, expansive brow full of intellectuality, pleas- 
ant but searching eyes, and kindly expression of counte- 
nance make him a notable and attractive individual. 
He is one of those persons that every one can recall in 
every-day life, who were regarded as plain men in their 
young days, who have flowered under the beautifying 
alchemy of pure, brainful, laborious lives into handsome- 
ness. Years of clean thought and successful endeavor, 
of domestic purity and intellectual action, of victorious 
ordeal mixed with enough of the inevitable chastening of 
sorrow, chisel the features and face into a certain 
comely result of these refining processes. An expres- 
sive countenance becomes rounded and softer, and 
a long, beautiful and useful life, by the steady attrition of 
grace and power, gives an increasing attractiveness to a 
noted face. 

Senator Brown's career from this time onward must be 
one of increasing lustre and power. In renewed and 
strengthening health at the solid age of sixty, when Eng- 
lish leaders only get fairly into power, his potential states- 
manship ripened to highest maturity, backed by large 
wealth, he may reasonably look forward to political possi- 
bilities, if such he wishes, as no Georgian yet has com- 
passed. 



APPENDIX. 



Spkech of Hon. Joseph E. Browx, of Gkorgia, in thk Senate of 
THE United States, June 12, 1880, on thk Bill to Pension Sol- 
diers IN THE Mexican and Indian Wars; and on Reconstruc- 
tion AND THE Rights of the States in the Union. 

On the bill (S. No. 1753) granting pensions to certain soldiers and sailors of the 
Mexican and other wars therein named, and for other purposes. 

Mr. Brown said : 

Mr. President: This Government, after too long delay, granted pensions 
to the soldiers of the war of the Revolution without any qualification as to 
their wealth or poverty. 

We had the war of 1812. A long time passed before there were any pen- 
sions granted to the soldiers of that war, but the time did come when the 
(rovernment judged it was proper, on account of the valuable services ren- 
dered by them to their country, to grant pensions to the old and decrepit 
soldiers of the war of 1812. And 1 recollect no provision in that act that 
drew any distinction between him who was in the poor-house or the old 
soldier who lived in good style and had means to support himself. The 
pension was not for his poverty, but tor the valuable service rendered to his 
country. 

About thirty-fotir years ago we declared war against Mexico, and the 
soldiery of this country rallied under the flag of the Government and 
marched to that foreign soil, and achieved feats of valor the equal of which 
have scarcely been known on any other fields. They soon overran the 
country, humbled the government of Mexico, and dictated terms at its 
capital; and as the honorable senator from Texas [Mr. Maxey] justly tells 
us, we annexed as the result of that conflict of arms an empire of territory 
and an empire of wealth. The number of men was comparatively small who 
achieved this grand result. True, we have since pensioned the wounded 
and those who were disabled in that war. Time has passed along, and many 
o'f the old soldiers of the Mexican war, as it has been so well and so elo- 
quently said by the able senator from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees], are becoming 
decrepit. They are now mostly old men ; all except the youth who went in 
then are now gray-headed, time-worn, little able to work for their support. 

My honorable friend, the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Williams], in this 
state of the case comes forward with his bill to pension those old veterans 
who were his companions in arms, and the gallant old soldiers of the Indian 
wars, and we are met here with smendrnents which seem to us to be intended 
to defeat this measure. I neither impugn nor question the motives of sena- 
tors, but I say it seems to us this is the intention ; and if the amendments 
prevail, that this is to be the effect. The amendment of the senator from 
Jvansas [Mr. Ingalls] is in substance that all the soldiers who lately fought 
in the war for the preservation of the Union on the Union side are to be now 
pensioned. Another amendment, offered by the honorable senator from 
38 



594 APrENDix. 

Maine [Mr. Blaine], is, that the soldiers of the Mexican war are only to be 
pensioned where it is shown that on account of their poverty their neces- 
sities require it. 

As 1 have said, that is an unusual amendment because it has not been in- 
corporated in other bills granting pensions to soldiers who have defended 
the honor and the Hag ot their country. It is not a proper time now, I insist, 
to pension the Union soldiers indiscriminately, nor do 1 suppose honorable 
senators on the other side have any intention of doing so, because the period 
has not arrived which has brought them to old age, or that has caused them 
on account of their age or infirmities to be unable to work for an honest 
living. If it were the purpose of senators to vote to yive them pensions in- 
discriminately now, it would then be the ol^ject of my amendment to post- 
pone the operation of that part of the act till as long a period of time is past 
after the service was rendered as has already passed in the case of soldiers 
of the war against Mexico and of the Indian wars. 

I think it cannot be justly asserted that we of the South have been illib- 
eral in voting pensions to Union soldiers who were disabled by the war. But 
we insist that the cases are not parallel. It is not proper to put the Union 
soldier on the pension-roll by the side of the old soldier in the war against 
Mexico, because the length of time has not passed which disables him by 
age or infirmity from making his own living by his own exertions or his own 
labor. 

Mr. Ingalls. Will it disturb the senator if I ask him a question? 

Mr. Brown. No, sir; not at all. 

Mr. Ingalls, Does he base the right or claim to a pension upon the lapse 
of time that has intervened since the close of the war in which the soldier 
fought, or upon the necessities of the soldier or his surviving widow ? I 
should like an answer to that question. 

Mr. Brown. I will answer the senator's question by asking him one. 
Does he in pensioning the wounded otticers of the Union army base it on 
their n(!cessities, or does he pension the poor and the wealthy who lost limbs 
all alike V 

Mr. Ingalls. There is a class of pensions that are given to those who have 
specific disabilities resulting from gunshot wounds or loss of limbs, and in- 
juries of that description. There is another class of what are called pensions 
to dependent relatives, where there is no injury to the person receiving the 
pension, but where necessity and indigence and dependence must be proved. 
But my question was for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the 
senator believes that pensions should be granted simply upon the fact of 
lapse of time since the war closed, or upon the fact that there is a depend- 
ence and indigence and a necessitous condition that renders help fiom the 
Government desirable. 

Mr. Brown. I think the period that has elapsed in case of the soldiers of 
the war against Mexico is long enough, and that tlie pensions ought to be 
granted ; and the records will show that neither the senator nor his party, 
nor those on my side, have made any exception in the case of wounded 
soldiers in the Union army. As we have pensioned all alike without inquir- 
ing into their wealth or their poverty, we should pension all alike here with- 
out inquiring into their wealth or poverty. 

Mr. Ingalls. So we pension all the wounded soldiers and officers of the 
Mexican war without inquiring into their poverty or their wealth. They all 
Htand on the same platform. 

Mr. Brown. Then it follows when the time has come that it is proper to 
pension the officers and privates who were not wounded, it should be done 
without any regard to their poverty or wealth. 



APPENDIX. 595 

Mr. Tngalls. Is it a question of time? 

Mr. Brown. Yes ; time has much to do with it, and when the proper time 
comes to pension the Union soldier, 1 care not if he is a millionaire, who was 
a faithful soldier and acted a gallant part, I would vote to pension all alike. 
All who did the same service should have tl e same reward. 

Mr. Conkling. AVill the senator from Georgia allow me a minute? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir, with pleasure. 

Mr. Conkling. He seems to be discussing this question with candor and 
fairness. 

Mr. Brown. That is my intention. 

Mr. Conkling. 1 believe it; and for his information and my own I beg to 
submit to him this proposition: I understand the senator to argue that time 
is the controlling matter, and that had thirty-three years elapsed he would 
be willing to vote for this arnendment in favor of the soldiers of tbe Union. 
I think I am right so far. 

Now 1 ask the senator this question, or rather I submit to him in the form 
of a query this impression of my own: Although the proportion of men of 
advanced age who served in the Mexican war is of course immeasurablv 
greater now than in the case of men who served in the war for the Union, L 
think that, speaking positively, speaking of actual numbers, there is a far 
larger number of men advanced in age who served in the war for the Union 
than who served in the Mexican war, growing out of the fact that the whole 
number of enlisted men was so immensely greater. Forty-five j'ears 1 believe 
was the limit of age which subjected men to the draft. Now, without saying 
that numbers of men volunteered who were beyond that age, the senator 
will see that a very large number of men who served in the war for the 
Union must be now upwards of sixty. The war for the Union broke out in 
1861 — in 1860 in reality, but I will say ISCl ; nineteen years ago. Anian 
who was forty-five years old at that time is now sixty-four years old. Count 
all these men ; and is there not a much larger number than of men surviving 
who fought in the JNIexican war who are even as old as that V 

1 think the honorable senator will be compelled, if he will reflect a moment, 
to agree with me ; and it' he does, then 1 beg to ask him, assuming the whole 
force of his argument, why is it that, with laws now exactly equal toward 
soldiers of all the wars, we should come in and say that men sixtj^ years old 
and upward who fought in the Mexican war shall be paid a pension although 
no injuries were received by them, and that a much larger number of men 
of equal or greater age shall not be paid a farthing unless they lost limb or 
health ? It seems to me that the senator's argument would lead him to say 
that as to this much larger number at least of Union soldiers, the equities 
which he states applied quite as strongly to them. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President — 

Mr. Blaine. If the senator from Georgia will permit me one word in 
furtlier continuation of what the senator from Xew York has said — 

Mr. Brown. I was just going to observe that when 1 yielded the floor to 
the honorable senator from New York [Mr. Conkling] to make an inquiry, 
I did not expect he would inject a speech into mine. To the senator from 
Maine I will yield with pleasure. 

Mr. Blaine. I only want to inject a further observation, not a speech, and 
that is in continuation of the suggestion made. I do not believe a war was 
ever fought, certainly none on this continent, so exclusively by young men 
as the Mexican war was. It went with a whirl of enthusiasm through the 
Southwest of this country; the young men everywhere flocked to the stand- 
ard, and I presume that per capita there never was a more irresistible army 
than marched into Mexico; full of enthusiasm, full of fire, full of youth. 



596 APPENDIX. 

venture to say, taking tlie age of the survivors, — I am only repeating, prob- 
ably showing the other side what has been said already, — that you can find 
double the number of men over sixty years of age who served in the war for 
the Union that you can find of men who served in the war with Mexico, — 
double the number. 

JNlr. Conkling. Now at least double. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, I have listened with patience and with a great 
deal of interest to the remarks made by the honorable senator from New 
York and the honorable senator from Maine. I have been entertained by 
the ingenuity with which they have presented their argument ; and I have 
no hesitation in answering. My reply is, it will be time enough to meet and 
act on those questions when they come before the senate. 

When the senators introduce an amendment here, which they have not 
done, to limit the period of the age at which a soldier who served in either 
of the wars shall draw a pension, 1 may then be prepared to say something 
on that subject. If the lionorable senator from New York, for instance, 
chooses now to introduce an amendment to pension a soldier of the war for 
the Union who is sixty -five or seventy years of age, I may or may not be 
found voting with him. If he chooses to introduce an amendment here that 
a soldier who served in the war against Mexico shall not be pensioned until 
he has arrived at a certain age, I may or may not be willing then to vote 
with him. But no such question as that which the honorable senators have 
pressed on the consideration of the senate is now before us. 1 am discussing 
the bill with the amendments submitted ; and I am replying to the argu- 
ments which have been made on those amendments. I say that the cases of 
the Union soldiers and the soldiers of the Mexican war are not parallel; 
because tiiere were about two millions of men in the Union army and about 
one hundred thousand, 1 believe, in the army against JNIexico; and the pro- 
portion of old men in the Union army that served any length of time may 
not have been much greater than in the Mexican war ; but I presume it was 
something greater, because th&y were called out sometimes for mere local 
service for thirty days ; and I give the senators the benefit of all that ; but 
I say that does not affect the question we are now discussing. 1 will meet 
the question presented by the two able senators when it comes in shape for 
action before the senate. 

The time has come when I think it is proper to pension the soldiers of the 
war against Mexico and the Indian wars ; and when amendments come up 
as to limiting the period of time or the age when they shall have it, I will 
then consider that question. AVhen interrupted by the three honorable sen- 
ators I was discussing the amendment of the senator from JNIaine, by which 
he proposes to pension in the case of the soldiers against Mexico only those 
who are indigent ; and I was attempting to show the senate that that was 
an exception never made heretofore in a general pension bill, and that it 
was not a proper one to make against the men who had performed the feats 
of gallantry and had achieved the grand results that the men did who fought 
against Mexico. That is about what I desired to say upon that point. 

Now, Mr. President, a few remarks upon another point. 

The honorable senator from New Y'^ork [Mr. Conkling], it is true, did 
not say that the senators on this floor who fought on the Confederate side of 
the late war, which he terms the war of the rebellion, sit here by the grace 
of the Government, of the senators on the other side, or of the partj' to 
which the honorable senator belongs; but why, let me ask that honorable 
senator, was it necessary to throw out the idea on that point, that we sit 
here under circumstances where the title to our seats might at least by im- 
plication be questioned ? 



APPENDIX. 597 

The honorable senator in his interrogatories to the senator from Texas 
desired to know whether the result achieved by the Union army in the pres- 
ervation of the Union was not much greater, more grand and glorious than 
the result achieved by the soldiers in the war against INIexico. Ou this 
point I desire to say that I mvist suppose now that Providence overruled 
our efforts to secede from the Union, and I presume a wise Providence had 
a grand object in that result, and, if He had. He will doubtless continue to 
develop His designs until the achievements of the Union army in restor- 
ing the Union may be above comparison with the achievements of any otiier 
army that ever went into the field. If I am right as to the Divine will in 
this matter, then I trust these grand and glorious results may be perpetual, 
and may bring us with good govei'nment, unbounded wealth and unlimitt-d 
prosperity. 

But why, let me ask, are we thus told by the senator from New York, 
gently, delicately, mildly, that we hold title to our seats hereby grace? 
Your armies fought, as you claimed, for the preservation of the Union; you 
could not preserve it without representatives from all the States in this 
chamber. The Constitution of our fathers, the compact of union of our 
fathers, requires that each State shall have two representatives of her own 
free choice in this chamber; and I care not how long a State has been in 
rebellion, when she lays down her arms and you refuse to permit her sena- 
tors to come back into this Senate and occupy their seats you do that which 
you did not profess to do during the war ; you destroy the Union of the 
Constitution by refusing to permit the different departments of the Govern- 
ment to perform the functions required by the Constitution. 

The State of Geori;ia has a right to two senators on this floor under the 
.Constitution of the country, and they hold their seats here by the grace of 
no political party, of no government, of no department of government, and 
of no other power on the face of this earth except a guarantied right under 
the Constitution of the United States. We sit here as a matter of right, 
and not as matter of grace. 

True, we attempted to go out of the Union. I grant it. I was a seces- 
sionist, earnest and active ; I mince nothing about it. Georgia sent about 
one hundred regiments into the field against you, organized by me as gov- 
ernor of my State or called in under the conscript act of the Confederate 
States, which, as all know, I did not approve. We fought you honestly. 
We were as earnest, as honest, as bold, and as gallant as you were in the 
struggle. We believed we were right. 
Mr. Kirk wood. And believe it yet? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir ; I believe it yet. I say we were right on princi- 
ple at the time. I will give the senator the full benefit, and then I will say 
frankly to the senator from Iowa two great questions brought the war about. 
They were slavery and our differences on the right of secession. Two great 
questions, the discussion and agitation of which shook this country from 
centre to circumference. Bold men, enthusiastic men, I may say patriotic 
men, each believing they were right advocated their own ground with zeal 
and ability. 

We of the South believed we had a right to slavery guarantied by the 
Constitution of our fathers. The people of New England and Old England 
imported the slaves. You did not find it profitable to continue to use 
them, and you sold them to our fathers. As you did not find it profitable 
and it could be made profitable in the south, you sold them to our fathers, 
took their money, which you put into brick and mortar, factories, shipping 
and other profitable investments that built you up and made you a great 
people. I would detract nothing from your merits. I admire your industry, 



698 APPENDIX. 

I admire your educational institutions, and I admire your prosperity, and 
wish you well iu it. 

Your people, after the importation of slaves bad ceased, became dissatis- 
fied with slavery when we became prosperous with it, and without going 
over the ground so often occupied, which I do not intend to do here, suffiie 
it to say we reached the point where you had elected a President on a sec- 
tional issue against the extension of slavery, and we of the South thought 
we saw in this no other alternative than the ultimate downfall of slavery, 
or tlie exercise of what we considered the inherent right of secession and 
withdrawing from the Union. 

On this issue you resorted to anus to compel us to remain in the Union. 
We met you in the high court of your own choice, knowing that on the 
issue of that litigation was involved the question of slavery as well as the 
right of secession. I believed then and I believe now that the right of 
secession was inherent in the several States, but when we staked it upon 
the issue as joined we were bound honorably and in good faith to abide by 
the judgment of that highest of human tribunals, the vliima ratio regum. 
The result of that litigation in that high court of last resirt was the arbi- 
trament of the sword that slavery was abolished, perpetually, forever abol- 
ished, and must always remain abolished, and that ours is an indestructible 
Union of indestructible States. And as I said in the senate the other day, 
while I would have given my life then to maintain our institution of slavery 
believing it was for the best interests of both races, morally, politically, 
socially, and religiously, yet, if by turning my hand over to-day I could re- 
instate it I would not do so. I accept the result, feel bound by the judg- 
ment, and shall never move for a new trial. And 1 say the same as to the 
question of secession ; I consider it forever settled. 

I did think a State had the riglit to secede, and still think it had, but the 
decision of that high court, as already stated, was against the right and 
against my judgment of the right, and 1 feel bound by that decision, which 
settled the question finally, perpetually, forever. 

Now, will the senator from Iowa please put that with the other answer? 
That is where I stand. I hold that a great war like the late war between the 
States always settles something. The war of the Revolution settled some- 
thing. We went into that war the subjects of Great Britain ; we caine out 
a free country, with free and independent States. There was no question 
that the English government had the right to control us as colonies under 
her charters before that war. It is equally clear that she has no right to do 
it now. Why? Because the war settled that question and settled it for- 
ever. It settled it against England ; it settled it in our favor, and we are 
no longer the subjects of the British Crown. In this view of the subject it 
must be admitted that wars do often legislate, or at least they decide dis- 
puted rights. 

Mr. Kirk wood. Will the senator allow me? 

Mr. Brown. Not this moment. The parallel, to some extent, of the war 
of the Revolution is the war of the rebellion, as you teriu it, and as we must 
all term it on account of our failure. At the time we did not so consider it. 
If we had succeeded we would have been patriots and heroes, but having 
failed we were rebels ; consequently we must accept the term " the war of 
the rebellion." That war settles it permanently and absolutely that slaveiy 
is dead and that the right of sece.ssion is lost and gone forever, just as the 
war of the Revolution settled the fact that we were no longer colonists of 
the English government. But while that was true, it did not settle the fact 
that the States had no rights in the Union. It settled and settled perpet- 
ually, the question of our right to go out. That will never be contested 



APPENDIX. 599 

again, but we stand with whatever reserved rights we originally had in the 
Union under the Constitution, with the perfect right of State representation 
upon thi^ floor, without favor or grace from any quarter, and with the 
perfect right of local self-government as practiced by the fathers, limited 
only by the new amendments to the Constitution. And so has the Supreme 
Court of the United States in effect decided since the war. 

Miiny of the senators on the other side were Whigs originally, and I will 
admit that we stand to-day in this Government more nearly upon the 
original platform of the Whig party than that of the Democratic party, to 
which I belong and in whose fold I was reared. We cannot now stand to 
the full extent upon the doctrines of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Calhoun, be- 
cause the war, so far as the right of secession is concerned, has settled that 
against us; but we can stand upon the doctrines of Clay, Jackson, and 
Webster as to the rights of the States. And there is where I think we do 
stand, and where all States and parties should continue to stand. 

Now a word further in reference to our right to be here. I admit at the 
end of the war, when we were the vanquished yon' were the conquerors, 
and I as an original secessionist, believing we had gone out of the Union 
and had been conquered, admitted your right to dictate the terms as con- 
querors. 

When President Johnson committed the great mistake of not calling 
Congress together and submitting his plans to them before he attempted 
to reconstruct the Southern States, and dictated his terms, I advised our 
people instantly to accept them. Why? Because as I understood it we 
had seceded and you had made war upon us, and in that war you were the 
conquerors, and you had a right to dictate the terms; and as the President alone, 
in the absence of Congress, represented the conquerors, I bowed to his dic- 
tation. We had no one else to appeal to. 

When Congress assembled, and the Republican party, being largely in the 
majority, repudiated his action and took the matter in hand, you dictated 
terms that we of the South thought very hard ; but hard as I thought they 
were, as a matter of necessit/j and because there was no escape from it, I 
advised our people at once to recognize your authority, acquiesce, and 
promptly comply with your dictation. We had tried resistance to your author- 
ity when we liad nearly half a million of gallant men under arms, and by your 
superior numbers and resources you had decimated our ranks and compelled 
us to surrender. At the end of the struggle you had, I believe, over twelve 
hundred thousand troops organized and on your muster rolls, in service and 
ready for service. Having failed to make effective resistance while our 
armies were in the field, I saw no hope of it after they had surrendered and you 
remained armed and equipped in all the plenitude of your power. In this 
state of the case I was satisfied the wisest thing our people could do was to 
agree with the adversary quickl}^ I thought it of the first importance to 
get back into the Union and get rightful representation in Congress as 
States, even upon the unjust terms of your dictation. And I so ad\ised 
our people. 

It is true I went through a hard ordeal on account of that advice, but I 
have never yet regretted it, because I thought it was best for my section 
and best for the whole country. And I think it will be generally admitted 
that time has pi-oven the correctness of my judgment. I then stood upon 
the platform of acquiescence in the reconstruction measures dictated by 
Congress. I still stand there. The Democratic party of the whole Union 
stands there to-day, and has stood thei'e for the last eight years. I supported 
Grant in 1868. The national Democratic party supported Greeley in 1872. 
It seemed to me we were then together again. And I have constantly acted 



600 APPENDIX. 

with them since then. But at that time other eminent gentlemen differed 
with me. They were honest as I was. I impugn the motives of nobody. 
I only speak of the history of those events. I am aware, gentlemen, that 
you considered us still very rebellious, because the section to which 1 be- 
longed, the States lately in rebellion, did not instantly acquiesce in every- 
thing you dictated. Let us look at this a little and see if you ought not to 
have viewed our course with a little more fairness, not to say charity. It 
seems to me justice required that in passing upon our acts you should have 
taken into the account our true condition and the great embarrassments of 
our situation. 

We may have made a great mistake in going info the war. I think, how- 
ever, there was no other way on earth to get rid of the slavery question. It 
was only a question whether we would fight it out or our children would 
have to fight it out. Be that as it may, we went into it a wealthy people. 
We lost by the results of the war over two thousand million dollars' worth 
of slaves. We supported our own armies for four years out of our 
substance. It is true the Confederate government and the States issued 
bonds and notes, but at the end of the war you required us to repudiate 
them absolutely ; and I admit you had a shadow of reason for that, it was 
said there were Union men in those States, and Union men had a right to 
go there and settle, and that no Union man should be taxed for the purpose 
of paying the war debts of the Confederate States. That was the most 
feasible grounds on which you put it. Suffice it to say that you required us 
to repudiate those obligations, and the result was as stated, we supported 
our armies for four years out of our own substance. 

Then we returned to the Union as soon as you would let us. It is true 
we were in rather an awkward dilemma for a time. During the war you 
said we had no right to go out; that we never were out; that our ordinances 
of secession were nullities; that we were all the time in the Union. Well, 
we surrendered, after we had made as gallant a fight as we could, and we 
came back with our representatives ready to acquiesce in your theory, and 
in good faith resume our place in the Union, and you refused to admit us. 
You said we were in while we were fighting you, but we found we were out 
when we laid down our arms. However, after a long struggle you did 
admit us, but on what terms? You, by the fourteenth constitutional amend- 
ment and the reconstruction acts, disfranchised every man who had held 
office and taken an oath to support the Constitution from voting for dele- 
gates to the conventions held under the reconstruction acts, and after that 
period, not from voting, but from holding office until relieved by Congress. 

Well, now look at that. You will at least admit that the people of the 
South were a gallant people. And you can readily imagine how keenly they 
felt terms of that character. They thought it was hard, even cruel, that you 
should impose such terms ; but you did impose them. Furthermore, when 
you fiually let us back into the Union, we of course had to assume our part 
of the expenses of the war on your side. In other words, in proportion to 
our means we had to pay our part of the debt contracted for the support of 
the Union armies, and not only so, but we have to pay our part of the very 
large sum that is now annually appropriated to pension Union soldiers, and 
I grudge not a dollar of it to them, for they wt-re gallant men fighting for 
their honest convictions. On the other hand I think you should sympathize 
with the poor maimed soldier who on our side felt that he was fighting in as 
sacred a cause as yours, and beheved he was right, who can draw no pension 
because he was on the weaker side. 

But that was not all. You set our slaves free as I have said, and then very 
soon after that, you put the ballot in their hands to go to the polls by the 



APPENDIX. 601 

side of those who had lately been their masters and owners, and exercise the 
elective franchise. 

Now I beg senators to remember that all these things taken together were 
very trying to a gallant people. A people who liad gone into the war from 
honest conviction that they were right, who had lost iu the contest under cir- 
cumstances like these, would very naturally feel the defeat and the terms im- 
posed by the conqueror keenly, and it would have been remarkable if there 
had been no riots, no bloodshed, no lynch law, nothing there to disturb the 
quiet of society. It is only remarkable, when we ihink of all we had to undergo 
in- the reconstruction pei'iod, and the losses of the war, and the irritations grow- 
ing out of it, where every family had lost a father, a brother, or a son, to say 
nothing of property, not that we should have had so much of disorder, but 
remarkable that we did not have more of it. Place yourselves in our situa- 
tion, with our misfortunes, and tell me if you think your people would have 
acted with greater moderation or less of violence. 

Now the senator from Kansas [Mr. Ingalls] tells us that if this Bill passes 
we put upon the pension-rolls a portion of the old Mexican soldiers and the 
soldiers of the Indian wars who fought in the war of the rebellion under the 
rebel flag. I have no doubt that will be so, because they were as gallant a 
body of men as you ever knew when they fought under the Union flag. And 
when their section was invaded, and they were satisfied they were riyht, they 
rallied to arms and they did fight like heroes under the rebel flag. But, after 
all the hard terms you put upon us, after all we have had to suffer, as just re- 
cited, are these galhint old heroes to be still further punished V Is the bloody 
shirt to wave forever? Is there to be no time when the offence of fighting 
gallantly for honest convictions is condoned? 

We do not ask you, senators, to pen>ion them because they fought in the 
war of the rebellion, bttt give them pensions because they fought in the war 
against Mexico, under the flag of the Union. You say you forgive the balance. 
You do not require us now to-take the oath that we did not engage in the re- 
bellion before we can hold office. You permit the mass of our people to go to 
the polls by the side of their former slaves and vote. Why, then, will you 
make the point here, that these old heroes served in the rebel army, when 
asked to give them pensions for the service done upon a foreign field under 
the Union flag ? I think senators on the other side will not be so illiberal as 
that. It seetus to me to be illiberality. Now, when the war is over, and you 
have dictated the terms and enjoyed the results, you might at least be content 
to waive further reference to the conduct of these gallant men, who were act- 
ing under hone.-t convictions during the late civil btrife, and give them pen- 
sions for valuable services rendered to the Union. Why not? 

While on the floor I want to say a few words about another subject that is 
not exactly germane to this issue, but I shall not have another opportunity, 
and as it is in reply to remarks that dropped on the first day I sat in the 
senate from senators on that side, I ask your indulgence. It is in reference 
to the treatment of the colored race by the people of the South since the war. 
I know that much was said about sworn testimony as to riots and bloodshed 
in the South soon after the war. Much of this testimony was from sources 
wholly unreliable and unworthy of credit. But I have admitted that there 
was some of it, and have given you the reasons for it. Now allow me to tell 
you that that day has passed. In my State — and I can speak more certainly 
in reference to it because I am better informed there — we have as orderly a 
community to-day as senators from the northern section of the Union have 
in theirs. Law and order reign supreme, and he who inflicts an injury upon 
a colored man must answer for it to the law. Not only that ; the colored race 
has behaved well ; they are working well, and we feel most kindly toward 



602 APPENDIX. 

them. Why should we not? They were raised in our households; the mas- 
ter and the mistress of the premises had tlie responsibility of looking after 
and caring for tliem. That responsibility added to the common dictates of 
humanity and our interest iu them made us treat them well. There were 
some bad .slaveholders as there are some bad husbands and guardians in North- 
ern States ; but such was not the rule. 

When the war came the newspapers on your side predicted that it must be 
of short duration because our negroes would rise in insurrection and soon dis- 
band our armies. Well, I confess we were not without some apprehension on 
that subject, and they could have disbanded Lee's army any moment they had. 
risen in insurrection in the lear. I mention that to show you the kindly under- 
standing that existed between the two races at the time. There was no bad 
feeling there between them, and daring the whole period of the struggle, 
where they were not torn away from us by the Union armies intervening, they 
behaved as well as any race could behave, and I take pleasure in testifying 
to it. 

When General Sherman invaded the territory of my State and I called out, 
in addition to the very large number in Confederate service, the old men up 
to fifty-five and the boys down to sixteen, it was an extraordinary levy on 
account of the invasion. The whole manhood of the white race was in the 
martial field and the whole manhood of the colored race was in the corn-field 
and the cotton-field. They had it in their power to disband our armies, but 
they did not choose to do it, and when the news would come of one of Lee's 
or Stonewall .Jackson's brilliant movements and splendid victories, I have seen 
them throw their caps high into the air and .'^hout for joy over it. The only 
inquiry was, " How is Massa John or INIassa Tom ? Is he out safe ? " Hence 
I say we have no reason to feel unkindly toward them. 

Then again at the end of the war when you gave them the ballot by our 
side, without education, without training, without any state of probation, it 
was certainly a dangerous experiment. We anticipated, it is true, great 
trouble, and we did have trouble, because that class of men called carpet-bag- 
gers, who were adventurers, who had no stake at home, came down and took 
charge of them and often misled and deceived them, and in that way we had 
trouble ; but take it altogether they behaved then — and I take pleasure iu testi- 
fying to it — better than probably almost any other race would have done under 
similar circumstances. Then t say we are not hostile to the colored race. 
We are their friends and they are our friends. 

Now, a little further. Soon after tlie war, and during the reconstruction 
period, the question of their education came up. It was a very vexed question. 
The leaders of the two races came together when the first Legislature under 
the reconstruction acts was in session — and a considerable proportion of it 
was colored — to confer on that subject as to what was best to be done. I 
recollect a delegation of them came to my office — I was then on the supreme 
bench as chief justice of my State — and asked my advice about it, and I know 
they asked the advice of other gentlemen very freely. I said, " We cannot 
have mixed schools ; you build a school-house for your children on one liill, 
and we will build for ours upon another, and we will divide the money with 
you honestly and faithfully ; you shall have your honest pro rata according 
to the number of children you have within the school age, and though we have 
to pay it — and as a people we are left very poor — we believe it right that you 
have your part of it, and we will see that you get it." At the time we could 
not make large appropriations for that purpo.se, but we did the best we could 
and divided the fund fairly. It has since increased till I see by the last report 
of our able State school commissioner we now raise and apply to public schools 
in our State about $400,000 annually. 



APPENDIX. C03 

Mr. Teller. I wish to ask the senator what Legislature he speaks of ? 

Mr. Brown. I speak of the Reconstruction Legislature, the one immedi- 
ately after the Reconstruction convention. 

Mr. Teller. The senator, I suppose, does not speak of the Legislr\ture 
that assembled before the ballot was given to the colored people in bis State? 

IMr. Blown. Before what, sir? 

Mr. Teller. You had a session of the Legislature before the colored people 
were given the ballot, had you not? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, there was a session of the Legislature under the Johnson 
government, as you may term it. 

Mr. Teller. In the Legislature that assembled after reconstruction the 
negroes had control of the Legislature by their numbers, had they not? 

Mr. Brown. No, sir ; there was not more than a third ; I do not remember 
the exact number, but my recollection is there was not quite a tliird of the 
members who were colored men. The white men had the control of the 
Legislature. 

The question came up also as to the educati(m of their sons at college, and 
they asked wh^t about that. We said to them, "In the present state of feel- 
ing here if you send yonr sons to college with ours, there will be trouble and 
probably it will break up the college, but we will build you a coUeiie ; select 
your place ; we will appropriate money out of the treasury to construct your 
buildings for you, and we will appropriate exactly the same amount annually 
to your college that we do to our own, or if you will adopt a college that a 
noble charitable society of New England has already located in Atlanta, and 
tliey will waive the denominational feature, we wdll adopt that as the colored 
college of the State, and we will make the appropriation to it. 

Prior to that time we had appropriated annually $8,000 to our State 
University. That year we appropriated -18,000 each to the college for 
the whites and the college for the colored. A colored member went into 
the Legislature and moved that the schools be kept forever separate. A 
white member thereupon moved that the colored race should have their fair 
proportion of the fund. Both propositions were adopted and a fair division 
was made. It was just and it was right. It was true one of the executives 
of the State since did recommend that the $8,000 a year to the colored col- 
lege be discontinued for what he considered good reasons, but after the ques- 
tion had been thoroughly canvassed in the Legislature the appropriation was 
made by a majority so overwhelming that there was scarcely any division 
upon it. Then when our convention of 1877 met, which framed our present 
Constitution, they incorp(n-ated into it the fundamental principle that the 
State should continue to make suitable appropriations to maintain a colored 
college. 

The city of Atlanta maintains a system of public schools. It employs 
sixty-odd teachers in the imblic schools. They are paid out of the treasury 
by taxation of the people. Part of the schools were built for the colored 
race and part for the white, and they have had equal justice there all the 
while, and theie is no complaint whatever; at least I hear none, and I have 
been a niemher of the board since its organization. Therefore I say the col- 
oed people are satisfied. We have given them fair play in the educational 
system of the State throughout. 

We employ the colored people. They are the best laborers we can get. 
You may talk about German immigration, Chinese immigration, or any other 
immiiiration into the State, I would not give the negro as a laborer in the 
cotton-field for any man of any race. They are laboring there faithfully and 
we are paying them justly, and we intend to continue to do so. Many of 
them are accumulating property. We ai-e glad of it. We feel kindly toward 



604 APPENDIX. 

them. We wish them well. You made them citizens and we now wish to 
aid them to be good citizens, and to become useful members of society. To 
that end we shall do all in our power. 

I know I should beg the pardon of the senate for making this digression, 
as it is not germane to this particular debate ; but while on the floor I have 
asked the privilege, because I think some honorable senators on the other 
side the other day, from the tenor of their speeches, whatever may have been 
the case in the past, did not understand the facts of the case or the relations 
as they exist between the two races in our State at the present time. 

Now, Mr. President, I have gone through substantially what I desired to 
say. 1 have already said that we are payintr our part of the taxes to pension 
your wounded soldiers, and we do not grudge it to them, though we deeply 
deplore the fact that ours have no pensions. The only chance, probably, for 
the South to have a little in return is for you to give pensions to the^e old 
Mexican veterans, and veterans of the Indian wars. I know senators on the 
other side cannot be charged with want of generosity ; but, I ask, is it gener- 
ous in the present state of the case to refuse a little pittance to those men 
who composed that grand army of invasion of Mexico, the superior of which, 
according to its numbers, has never been known upon the planet that we in- 
habit? I appeal to senators to withdraw the objection, and, at least, do that 
much for the men who served so gallantly under the flag of the Union so long- 
ago, both in the Indian wars and the Mexican war, and do not lay to their 
account the fact that, pursuing their honest convictions, they have since served 
their own States and their own section in what you term the war of the re- 
bellion. It seems to me, after all that has been condoned and all we have 
suffered, that might be passed over on this occasion, and that your magna- 
nimity miglit prompt you to act liberally toward them. 

When we returned to the Union we did so in good faith. The question of 
the right of secession is settled forever, and with its settlement our faith is 
pledged to stand by and defend the Constitution and the Union. In the field 
you found the Southern armies to be brave men, and brave men are never 
treacherous. Should our relations with foreign powers at any time involve 
this government in war, the people of the North will have no reason to com- 
plain of the promptness, earnestness, and gallantry with which the people of 
the Southern States will rally around the old flag and bear it triumphantly 
wherever duty calls. If that emergency were now upon us, the comrades in 
arms of Sherman and Johnston, who once confronted each other with such 
distinguished heroism, would rally together in the cause of the Union, and, 
vying with each other, would perform such prodigies of valor as the world 
has seldom witnessed. This being the present condition of the country, the 
present feeling of the great masses of people on each side, let us do justice to 
each other, restore cordial and fraternal relations, and folding up the bloody 
shirt let us bury it forever beyond the reach of resurrection : and let us unite 
in the enactment of such laws as will show to the world that we are once 
more, not in name only but in reality, a united people, ready to do equal and 
exact justice to all. And let us move forward grandly and gloriously in united, 
efforts to restore to every section of the Union substantial, growing, material 
prosperity; and we will then bring to the whole country peace, happiness, and 
fraternal relations. This seems to n:e to be a consnmniation devoutly to be 
wished by the patriotic people of all parts of the Union. 



APPENDIX. 605 

Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Rrown, in the United States Senate, 
Wednesday, December 15, 1880, on the Educational Fund. 

On the bill (S. No. 133) to establish an educational fund, and apply a portion of 
the proceeds of the public lands to public education, and to provide lor the more com- 
plete endowment and support of national colleges for the advancement of scientific 
and industrial education. 

"This bill, reported unanimously by the Committee on Education and Labor, pro- 
poses to consecrate the proceeds of sales of public lands to the education of the people. 
It will not interfere with the rights of pre-emption nor with entries for home- 
steads, and leaves unimpaired the claims of any State to itsperceutage of the sales of 
public lands. As the amount of such sales will hereafter be small, it is proposed to 
add to this educational fund the net proceeds of all receipts for patents after de- 
ducting the expenses of the Patent Office. The entire fund is then to be invested in 
United States bonds and the interest annually appointed to the several States and 
Territories upon the basis of population between the ages of five and twenty-five 
years, except that for the first ten years the apportionment is to be made according 
to the numbers of their population, respectively, of ten years old and upward who 
cannot read and write ; with the further provision that one-third of the income from 
the fund shall be annually appropriated to the more complete endowment and sup- 
port of colleges established, or such as may hereafter be established in accordance 
with the act of Congress approved in 1862, until the annual income of each shall 
amount to $30,000 ; and thereafter all beyond that sum is to be devoted to the educa- 
tion of the children of the several States and Territories, including the District of 
Columbia, between the ages of six and sixteen years. Authority is also to be given 
for the acceptance of any sums which may be donated for these objects by will or 
otherwise." 

Mr. Brown said : 

]\ir. President: J have listened with a great deal of pleasure to the able 
and eloquent argument made by the lionorable senator from Vermont [Mr. 
Morrill] in favor of the passage of the bill now before the senate. We live 
under a republican form of government. The stabihty of that government 
depends, in my opinion, upon the virtue and intelligence of the people of 
the United States. We are exposed all the time to tests of the permanency 
and stability of tliis form of government. When we had a sparse population 
of but a few millions scattered over a very large territory, with no large 
masses of people congregated together in great cities or centres, we were in 
a condition better adapted to the maintenance of republican government 
than we shall be when we have a hundred millions of population crowded in 
the centres and upon the older settled portions of our territory, where large 
masses can congregate upon short notice. In that condition, if we have 
large masses of ignorance, understanding nothing about the form or prin- 
ciples of the government, we have little to expect in the future. It becomes, 
therefore, important that we should educate the mass of the American peo- 
ple if we expect to perpetuate American institutions. 

Not only is this true as far as it relates to the Government, but the 
public interest requires that we have the whole intellect of the people 
developed and cultivated for the purpose of building up and improving 
society. Neither the intellect of this country nor of any other country 
is confined to children born of the nobility, the aristocracy, or the 
wealthy classes. Neither Disraeli nor Gladstone was born of the nobility, 
and yet to-day the destinies of England and of the British Empire are con- 
. trolled by the intellect of these two competitors. Though born neither of 
tlie nobility nor of the royal family, they say what the Crown shall do, what 
the nobility shall do, and what the commons shall do. 

So it is in this Government. The intellect of the people of this country is 
not confined to the sons of the aristocracy or the wealthy classes. George 
AVashington was a surveyor ; Benjamin Franklin was a printer ; Roger 
Sherman, I believe, was a shoemaker ; Andrew Jackson was a penniless or- 



606 APPENDIX. 

phan ; Henry Clay was a mill boy ; Daniel Webster was the son of poor par- 
entage ; Andrew Johnson was a tailor, who when married could neither read 
nor write ; his wife taught him to read ; he was self-educated and self-made ; 
General Grant was a tanner; the great commoner, Alexander II. Ste- 
phens, was a poor orphan boy ; Abraham Lincoln split rails and labored in 
his youth with his hands for his living ; and 1 believe the Presidentelect, Gen- 
eral Garfield, was born of poor parentage. 

Then it is true that in this country as well as every other the intellect of 
the country is not confined to the sons of the wealthier or the ruling classes; 
and I maintain that the State has a right to have the intellect of the whole coun- 
try developed out of the mass of the wealth of the country and brought into 
action for the protection of society and the building up and development of 
the country. How can this be done ? Only by tlie education of the children 
of all classes of society. I have no doubt many a man has lived in the 
United States, of intellect as grand as those I have mentioned, who has died 
unknown to fame. Why so V Because no circumstance has led to the first 
stage of development that has made the person himself conscious of his own 
powers. That bright boy has never been sent to school ; he has never been 
taught even the first rudiments of a common education ; he has been con- 
fined to labor in the backwoods, in the factory, in the shop, or in the mines, 
and while he may have been regarded there as one of the most intellectual 
of his comrades, there has been no development that showed his powers to 
either him or them, or that gave the country the benefit of those powers. 

Educate the whole mass of the people and you have the benefit of all this 
power. Let me illustrate. The honorable senator who has just taken his 
seat was too modest to refer to it because he is from New England, but we 
find a noted example there. When the Puritans, as we term them, landed 
in this country and located themselves on the bleak shores of New England, 
they commenced building up society by the organization of churches and 
the building of houses of worship, and they located the school-house near 
the church. They established a system of common schools that was intended 
to embrace the whole population and to give every child an opportunity to 
have a common education. They commenced early and laid deep the foun- 
dations of their universities and colleges. The result has been that they have 
endowed and built up colleges of a very high order, where immense numbers 
of the young men of this country have been educated. 

Go out through the mighty West and over the Teriitories to the Pacific 
Ocean, and what do you find ? Where was the member of Congress or the 
senator in this hall educated ? Usually at a New England college. Where 
was the minister of religion, or the village doctor, or the lawyer, or the local 
politician educated ? Most of them in the New England colleges. Thus 
they fcarried New England ideas with them all through the West, which have 
controlled in the organization of society and the legislation of States, and in 
that way New England may be said to have dictated laws to the continent. 
Her ideas, taught to the youths that have gone out West and scattered all 
over this broad land, have been carried along and ingrafted upon society, and 
we are obliged to admit that they have done a great deal in controlling the 
destinies of the country. 

It was not only so with New England ; but there is another very noted ex- 
ample worthy of our attention. I refer to the Kingdom of Prussia. At the 
time Napoleon the First led his armies over Europe like an avalanche, and 
swept down kingdoms and empires before him, Prussia was a third-class 
power, devastated by the ravages of war. At the end of the great 
struggle, in making preparations to build up society, she early took into 
account the importance of educating the whole mass of her people. She en- 



APPENDIX. 607 

dowed universities liberally ; she establi.-bed a system of public schools 
tlirouglioiit the entire kingdom, and she not only by her legislation from 
time to time made provision for the education of all her children, but she 
made their education compulsory. Slie permits no father who has been the 
means of bringing offspring into society to s;iy, '-1 will not permit my child to 
be educated ; 1 will not send him to school." She says : " 'J he State lias an 
interest in it and it shall be done." The law lequiies the parent to send the 
son, and then the State gives him the rudiments of an education. lie must 
have it; the good of society requires it ; the law compels it. 

How did it work 'i From a third-rate power Prussia rose rapidly to a 
second-rate power; and witliia the last few years tiie test of strength came 
between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Empire set up by Napoleon, when ' 
his successor, a wise statesman, was upon the throne. What was tlie result V 
That little third-rate kingdom, overrun by Napoleon the First, had risen to 
be a power in Europe, and when the struggle came Prussia swept over 
France, dethroned the monarch, the successor to Napoleon the First, and 
dictated terms to France upon her own soil. Why was it so ? It may be 
said she had abler generals; that iier armies were better handled. There 
was another reason ; she had a better educated people. Iler whole people 
were educated. Every man felt an individuality in what he was doing, and 
then she had all the best intellects of the kingdom educated to fill the differ- 
ent places where it was necessary to have ability. A government that 
educates all her brightest intellect has greatly the advantage of one that 
educates only that poition of her intellect that is born in the wealthier and 
higher ela-!ses of society. 

Under the Prussian system, as I understand it, if a boy shows. great bright- 
ness and is intellectually adapted with projier training to the position of a pro- 
fessor of chemistry, he is carried through the university, and he is fully de- 
veloped and educated in that department of science. If another shows great 
talent for the militai-y, he is passed through the military department ; and if 
he has a master mind, he is nnide a master of the military profession; and 
so in each department. Therefore, when Prussia called upon her sons to rally 
under her banner, she had lier ablest intellect cultivated in their respective 
positions, and they were ready to step forward and fill each phice with a first- 
class man. This was not so with the French. They have colleges and uni- 
versities of the highest order; they have education of the highest order; but 
they have not the whole mass educated as they are in Prussia. There may 
have been some of the ablest generals by nature and some of the most use- 
ful men that the army could have required in other positions who were in 
the ranks, whose power was not known because they had not been developed 
by education, and theiefore the slate lost the benefit of their mental powers. 
I say the state has the right to the aid of all the mental power of its people, 
and it can have it in no other way than by the education of all the masses of 
the people of the state. And this should be done by the aid, as far as neces- 
sary, of all the wealth of the state. 

Take our own country, to-day. In the backwoods, among the mountains, 
peradventure away out among the Kocky Mountains, or down in the wire- 
grass of the South, there is many a brij;ht-eyed boy, who has intellect of the 
highest order, in one of the humblest cottages or cabins of the land. And 
there, if neglected, he may stay and work his way through life with no op- 
portunity to show the power he possesses. But send him to the common 
school and let the rough be knocked off that diamond until it begins to glit- 
ter, and you cannot then stop him. He will go forward, and the more the 
diamond" is polished the brighter it will sparkle, till it shines out in all its 
brilliant splendor and magnificence. But this could not have been done 



608 APPENDIX. 

without education enough to show what was in the boy. Therefore, with- 
out tbe education of the mass of the people and of the whole people, you 
cannot have the benefit of the whole intellect of the country brought to bear 
in the building up of society and the development of the resources and pow- 
er of the state. 

But there is another good reason, Mr. President, why those who come 
from my section of the Union should advocate this measure. The honorable 
senator from Vermont [Mr. Moriull] referred to the fact of the large 
illiteracy of the people of the United States. He did not carry it Out and 
show to what States or sections this illiteracy applies most. I regret to say 
it is from my own section. There are several reasons Mhy it is so. Under 
our old system of society we looked more to the education of the ruling class 
than we did to the education of the whole mass. In other words, we did not, 
as they did in New England, furnish the money to establish systems of pub- 
lic schools where all the children could be educated, but we educated our 
children through the means of private schools, where only the wealthier 
classes and those who were well-to-do could send their children. Conse- 
quently there was a larger number of illiterate persons in our society than 
there was in the society of New England or any other State that had a 
properly endowed public school system. 

But this was not all. AVe had there a large slave population, amounting 
in round numbers to four millions at the time they were emancipated. Un- 
der our system as long as we kept and used them as slaves it was legarded 
unsafe to educate them. Therefore their education was neglected, and it 
was a very hazardous experiment when they were made citizens without 
education. 

The honorable senator from Rhode Island [General Burnside] referred 
to the condition of the Scotch people at a time when they were not educated, 
and told us how degraded they were and how they were looked down upon, 
and to the elevation that they afterward attained when by a common-school 
system they were educated up to a high point. Let me follow his example 
and trace something of the history of another race of people. Take the 
African race, and go back two and a half centuries, and where were they 
and what were they? They were heathens; they lived on the continent of 
Africa in a state of the wildest ignorance and most savage barbarity. The 
different tribes engaged from time to time in warfare, and in many instan- 
ce.s the rule was indiscriminate slaughter ; but if thej' took prisoners they 
were spared, out of no mercy to the prisoner, but because he was valuable 
to them to be sold as a slave. At the period when this country was first set- 
tled those wars were raging on the continent of Africa, and it was then con- 
sidered, not only by the tribes themselves but by Old England and New 
England, that they were proper persons to be made slaves. Companies were 
organized for the purpose of engaging in the importation and traffic, and it 
is said that the reigning queen and afterward the kings of England owned 
stock in those companies. In that day it was believed to be right. 

I do not mention this subject now with a view of bringing up any mooted 
question about slavery, but I am speaking of the history of the negro. All 
then considered slavery was right. Tlie negroes were imported into this 
country as slaves and sold into slaverj- from British vessels and the vessels of 
New England. They were sold to us in the South. We bought them, we 
believed it was right to buy them, and they believed it was right to sell them. 
In a word, at that time the negro was considered as only fit to be a slave, and 
fit for nothing else, and he occupied a much more degraded position than the 
Scotch did at the time referred to by the honorable Senator from Rhode 
Island. 



APPENDIX. 609 

And just here permit me to refer to a chapter in the history of mv own 
State. Tlie original charter of the cok^ny of Georgia made it a free State, 
and the trustees for a number of years persisted in their refusal to permit ne- 
gro slavery or rum to be brought into tiie colony. Finally it was discovert d 
that the adjoining colony of South Carolina and other southern colonies that 
h id adopted slavery were more pi-osperous than that of Georgia, and ihe peo- 
ple from the other colonies refused to emigrate to Georgia and stay there un- 
less they were permitted to carry their slaves with them. About that period 
in our history, John Wesley aiui George Whitefield, the two great divines 
who under Providence were the founders of Methodism, and who planted the 
church on our soil, associated themselves with the colony at Savannah, and 
AVhitefield established his orphan asylum, which was intended to be and was 
iu fact a noble charity. After considerable effort to sustain it, he came to 
the conclusion that it was his true interest to purchase a plantation and slaves 
in the colony of South Carolina, which he did, and which he declared did 
much to enable him to maintain his asylum. And this great divine because 
one of the ablest and most zealous advocates for the establishment of slavery 
in the colony of Georgia. Finally the pressure upon the trustees became so 
great that they yielded, and slavery was permitted and soon became an es- 
tablished institution. I simply mention this to show that in my own Stale 
slavery was prohibited by law at a time when the people of the mother 
country and of New England were importing slaves under the sanction of 
law without a question that the traffic was legitimate. 

Slavery was found to be unprofitable in New England and the Middle 
States, and, like every other traffic, it was carried where the commodity was 
most needed and would pay best. Consequently the slaves were sold by the 
ancestors of the people of New England and the Middle States to our ances- 
tors in the South, and the money obtained for them was doubtless invested 
in building up your towns, your factories, and your commerce. At that time, 
however, neither section believed that tlie otiier was doing wrong in engag- 
ing in the importation, the traffic, or the use of slaves. 

Thus matters passed for a long period. Slavery was recognized by all, and 
the savages imported as slaves were trained here in the practices and ideas of 
civilization till they were very much elevated in the scale of Chiistian civil- 
ization before slavery was abolished. They were taught not only the prin- 
ciples of civilization but the principles of Christianity. 

1 well recollect, years ago, before the war between the States, in one of the 
assemblages of the Fiesbyterian Church in New York, the Reverend Dr. 
Stiles used in substance this noted expression, '"the southern church holds 
up to the gaze of heaven and earth more converted heathens (referring to 
our slaves) than can be shown in heathen lands as the result of the labors of 
all the missionaries of all the Protestant churches combined." Yes. of this 
four million people we held up a large number who were converted to Chris- 
tianity and reclaimed to civilization. In other words. Providence seems to 
have had a great design in this matter. They were brought here as slaves ; 
indeed they were prisoners and slaves at home and sold as such by their own 
people. We used them as slaves, and we believed we had the right to do so. 
And while they were going through this long training o( slavery they were 
improving all the time intellectually and morally. But the time came when 
the same overruling Providence that permitted them to be brought here as 
slaves determined in His divine decrees that they should no longer be slaves. 
And who can say that it is not the design of Providence that the descendants 
of those who by the rulers of Africa were sold into slavery, improved and ele- 
vated by slavery till they were fit for freetlom, may not be the instruments 
iu the hand of God in redeeming Africa from the darkness and thraldom in 
39 



610 APPENDIX. 

which she is now shrouded, and in bringing her to the marvellous light of 
Christian civilization? 

But let us notice further the remarkable history of this people. The two 
sections of the Union were arrayed in hostility against each other on tlie sub- 
ject of slavery. If you of the North had proposed to tax yourselves and pay 
us for the slaves, in the then temper we would not have agreed to accept it. 
We would have said, " We have constitutional guaranties that we shall hold 
them, and you must not interfere." On the other hand, i^ it had been pro- 
posed to tax the people of the United States to pay for them and liberate 
them, tlie people would have submitted to no such taxation. Therefore that 
was impossible. The passions and prejudices on both sides of the line were 
aroused into active play. There was but one way to eradicate slavery, and 
that was to tear it out by the roots; and as Providence was working out a 
great problem, we were plunged into the war between the States, and the 
institution was staked upon the result. Neither side contemplated abolition 
aUthe commenceuient, but as Providence designed it, the termination of the 
struggle was the abolition of slavery. 

Here, then, was another step taken in the wonderful development in con- 
nection with this race. From having been prisoners of heads of tribes in 
Africa and sold by their own people into slavery, and from having gone 
through a long period of servitude, the time had couie when Providence de- 
termined they should no longer be slaves. But as our friends of New Eng- 
land and the Northern States had engaged in the importation of them and 
had sold them to us, and made profit by it, and as we had used slavery and 
made profit by it, and no section could charge that another was alone respon- 
sible, every section and every part of the Union had to bleed for it, and we 
all had to bear burdens to get rid of it. But we are rid of it. 

AVhen the Constitution of the United States was formed, slavery was not 
only tolerated and provision made for the surrendering up of fugitive slaves 
to the owner on requisition, but at that time the States were not ready to 
cut off the importation; those engaged in the traffic wanted to make more 
money out of it. They were unwilling to give it up, and it was insisted 
upon and carried, and incorporated into the Constitution that the importa- 
tion should not be abolished prior to the year 1808. So guarded were those 
who framed the Constitution on that point that in making provision for its 
own amendment, it is expressly provided that that clause shall not be 
amended prior to 1808. Then negroes were slaves, and slaves were property, 
and that property was guarantied to us by the Constitution of the United 
States. 

But when we went into the struggle of 1861 we were well aware that if we 
failed we hazarded our title to our slaves, and that abolition was a possibility. 
At the end of the struggle, when we surrendered our armies and the then 
President of the United States adopted a policy without consulting Congress, 
of reconstructing the Union, he required us to call conventions in the South- 
ern States; and the Congress having submitted to the States the thirteenth 
constitutional amendment, we adopted it. There was no contest made over 
it in the South. The Southern States, as well as the Northern and Western 
States, agreed at the end of the struggle that slavery should be abolished ; 
and we put into the Constitution a provision that forever guarantied the 
abolition. Then the negro had taken one more step. From a slave he was 
a freedman without the rights of a citizen. 

Then followed a proposition by Congress to the States to adopt the four- 
teenth amendment. That amendment declared him to be a citizen. In 
other words, it declared all persons born or naturalized in the United States 
to be citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 



, APPENDIX. 611 

Then the negro had made one more advance step. From being a freedman 
he was now a citizen. But it was soon found that this was not enough. 
Very grave questions were raised as to whether a race who had been slaves 
and thus freed and made citizens were entitled to all the rights of the origi- 
nal citizens of this country; in other words, whether they had the right to 
vote and hold office; and Congress had to take one more step. That step 
was to propose the fifteenth constitutional amendment, which guarantied to 
the race the right to vote. Then tlie negro advanced one further step. 
From being a citizen without rights as to voting and holding office he was 
made a citizen free and independent, with all the riglits of any other citizen 
of the United States. Of course, I mean legal rights. He was made the 
legal equal of any and every other citizen of this Union. Social rights must 
take care of themselves; neither the Congress nor any other governmental 
power can regulate them. But all his legal rights were guarantied. Then 
what was the status? Here are (our million persons, formerly slaves, then 
freednien, then citizens without all tiie rights of citizenship, then full-fledged 
citizens with every right of the citizen, turned loose among us, without edu- 
cation, incorporated into society as part of the citizens of the United States 
and of the States in which they lived. 

A grave problem arises here for solution. They must be educated ; but 
we are not able to educate them. Why not? We claimed to be a wealth v 
people before the war. So we were; but we lost, according to the best esti- 
mates, about $2,000,000,000 in the value of our slaves. It was that much 
gold value, our own under the Constitution of the United States, which we 
lost by the war, and it was gone forever. That impoverished us to that ex- 
tent and it was a very heavy draught. Then we had to support the Confed- 
erate armies for four 3 ears without a dollar of help, out of our substance. 
True, we issued Confederate bonds and notes ; they were paid out for our 
substance, but at the end of the war they were repudiated and they became 
as ashes in our hands. We lost, then, not only two billions in slaves, but we 
lost about two billions more in the support of our armies for four years. 
Then we lost immense amounts in the destruction of property by the armies 
outside of what was necessary to feed and clothe them. 

But that was not all. At the end of the struggle we had to return to the 
Union and resume our po<ition and take upon ourselves our just proportion, 
according to our means, of the war debt contracted by the Government in 
the suppression of what is known as the rebellion. Then, f say, with these 
draughts upon us we are not able to e<li(cate these four millions of people 
that were turned loose among us. As 1 have already stated, during the pe- 
riod of slavery it was not our policy to educate them ; it was incompatible, 
as we thought, with the relation existing between the two laces. Now that 
they are citizens we all agree that it is our policy to educate them. As they 
are citizens, let us make them the best citizens we can. I am glad to see 
that they show a strong disposition to do everything in their power for the 
education of their children. 

Then I say the provision of the bill that gives for ten years at least the 
advantage to the States where there is most illiteracy is a ju*t and a wise 
provision, and I thank the senators from New England and the other wealthier 
States for the sense of justice they exhibit in coming forward and showing a 
willingness to aid in the education of these people. We all agree that it is im- 
portant that they be educated. You will agree with me that we in the Southern 
States are not now able to educate them, and our own children. They were 
set free as a necessity of the Union. You so regarded it. Then it is proper 
that the Union should come forward^ and with its vast resources aid in their 
education, and I am glad to i^ee a movement made that looks in that direction. 



612 APPENDIX. • 

I confess I have better hopes for the race for the future than I had when 
emancipation took place. They have shown a capacity to receive education, 
and a disposition to elevate themselves that is exceedingly gratifying, not 
only to me, but to every right-thinking Southern man ; and I wish you to 
understand that we harbor no hostility to the race in the South. There are 
many reasons why we should not, no good reasons why we should. They 
were raised with us ; they played with us as children. Under the slaverj' 
system the relations were kind. When the war came on it was supposed by 
many that they would rise in insurrection and soon disband our armies. 
They at no time ever behaved with more loyalty to us, or with more propi-iety. 
Since the end of the war, when, as we thought, you very unwisely gave them 
the ballot, they have exercised the rights of freemen with a moderation that 
probably no other race would have done. Therefore I say it is our duty in 
the South especially, and I think yours in the North as well, to encourage 
them, and, as they are now citizens, to elevate them and make them the best 
citizens possible. 

But, as I stated a while ago, I have given you a reason why theie is such 
a vast preponderance of illiteracy now in our section. It is not only due to 
the fact that we did not have the common-school s\ stems in tiie Southern 
States prior to emancipation, but that the four millions of freednien were 
added to our population as citizens there, without education. Then we mup t 
appeal to you not only now but in future to be liberal toward the South in 
aiding in the education of these people. 1 know there have been comjjlaints 
that they may have been cheated in some instances at the ballot-box. Igno- 
rance may be cheated anywhere. Doubtless, Senators, you have seen the 
more ignorant class cheated in your own States. If you would guard against 
this effectually in the future, educate them; teach them to know their rights 
and, knowing them, they will maintain them. 

It is necessary to educate them, furthermore, for the reason that they do 
not now understand, as ignorance does not anywhere understand, the theory 
and form and spirit of our Government. Education will enable them to 
understand it. We mupt give it to them. We must teach them what is 
the nature of the government, what are the principles of the Constitution of 
the United States, and now that we all agree that it is to be perpetual in 
future, we must teach them to love the Union and to be ready to stand by 
and defend it, and I believe the senators from New England will agree 
with me when I say we must teach them also that the Union is a union of 
States, and that we must not destroy the States. When the States are 
destroyed there is no longer the Union of our fathers. As the Union is to 
be indissoluble, the States which form the Union, and without which it 
cannot be maintained, must forever remain indestructible, and they must 
continue in the exercise of all the re.-served rights which they now possess 
under the Constitution as it stands, with the amendments adopted by the 
States. 

Therefore, it is necessary to teach all citizens, white and colored, and to 
teach their children, the importance of maintaining republican institutions 
in the purity in which they originally came from the hands of the framers 
of our Constitution, and to maintain the ballot-box in its purity also. I 
announced in my own State to the electors who were to vote on my case 
the next day, that I was for a free ballot and a fair count. I want to see 
the day come when that will be so everywhere, not only in Louisiana, South 
Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, but in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and 
Indiana as well. Let it be so everywhere. Let us educate our people, 
white and colored, up to the point where they understand the proper use 
of the ballot ; then let it be free to all, and let the ballots be fairly counted 



APPENDIX. G13 

when deposited. Having referred to the struggle that brought about the 
present state of things, I will add that whatever I may have thought of the 
terms you dictated to us, I have accepted them, and I have all the while 
advocated carrying them out in letter and in spirit in good faith, in practice 
as well as in theory. Whenever the whole mass of the people are educated 
there is no danger in doing this. Until they are educated there will be 
impositions practiced upon ignorance in every section of this country, and 
probably in every State in the Union. 

The honorable senator from Vermont referred to the great good that was 
being done by the appropriation made in 1862 of portions of the public land 
to establish agricultural and mechanical colleges in the different States. I 
can bear testimony that in my own State that appropriation has been most 
beneficial. It was accepted by our State, the land scrip sold, and the 
money was delivered to the trustees of tlie State University, and they con- 
nected with our university a college of agriculture and the mechanic arts, 
which has been well conducted and resulted in great good; but there were 
certain sections of our State not well content with the centralization of it, 
as they termed it, in one locality, and it was asked that it be distributed 
more justly between the different sections of the State. The trustees of 
the university agreed that they would endow a branch college at Dahlonega 
in the building of the old United States mint that Congress donated for the 
purpose of a school, and they gave $2,000 a year of the interest derived from 
the fund toward its support. Since then it has been carried up to $3,500 
per annum and we have established three other branches of the university 
— one at Milledgeville, one at Cuthbert, and one at Thomasville. Those 
branches are colleges of a lower grade than the university. They educate 
girls and boys — we have both sexes there educated — up to the point where 
they can enter college. For instance, a boy who graduates in one of them 
can enter the junior class of our State University, and we have at this time 
about eight hundred pupils in those four branch colleges. They are located 
in sections where they can be easily reached by our people generally. There 
is a cheap mode of board established there. Mess-halls are resorted to, and 
it is deemed altogether respectable for a young man to board himself as 
best he can and go into the schools. The amount of good they are doing 
is incalculable. At Dahlonega the trustees are authorized, on the proper ex- 
amination of a young man or young lady in the college, to give a certificate 
authorizing him or her to teach in the public schools of the State, and at 
the last commencement there were about eighty licensed for teachers. 
They go out all over our country and teach three months' schools during 
the vacation. In this way they make some money to enable them to go 
forward again with their studies. And thus there is a very great amount 
of good done by that college, and I should very gladly see as large an addi- 
tion as possible made to its endowment. 

If we could have two or three other of these branches in different sections 
of our State we could add greatly to the present advantages. Doubtless the 
same may be true in the other States. 

The only real regret I have about this matter is that the fund we shall be 
able to raise from the proceeds of the sales of the public lands and from the 
Patent Office fees will be too small to meet the demand; but I trust this is 
the entering-wedge, and that we may see our way clear in the future, if this 
works well, to do still more for the cause of education. 

I know some objection has been raised on the constitutional question. 
It has been said that the States alone can take charge of this matter ; that 
the Federal Government has nothing to do with the education of the people. 
Well, under the strictest rules of construction of the old State-rights school 



6U APPENDIX. 

prior to the war possibly that was so ; but we do not live under the Constitution 
that we lived under then. The amendments made at the termination of 
the struggle have very greatly enlarjied the powers of this government. 
Again, 1 think the constitutional objection cannot apply to this bill, for the 
reason that it is mainly a proposition to dispose of the pioceeds of the pub- 
lic lands, and so far as those proceeds are concerned there never has been 
a time when the Government did not have the right to dispose of them. As 
far back as 1836 there was a law passed for the distribution of the surplus 
funds in the treasury, and in 1841 to distribute the net pioceeds of public 
lands, the Congiess recognizing the fact that they belonged to the States. 
Then in the organization of new States and Territories large amounts of 
the public domain have been set apart for the use of colleges and schools 
there, recognizing the power of Congress to use a portion of the land for 
this purpose. 

Then, again, the act of 1862, of which I have been speaking, which appro- 
priates a certain amount of the public lands in aid of agricultural colleges, 
is another use of the public domain for that purpose which has not been 
objected to. After all that has been done, why may we not now appropriate 
the future proceeds of the public lauds and the Pateiit office to this sacred 
purpose ? 

But I believe there is another provision of the Constitution that may 
have some bearing here. " The United States shall guaranty to every 
State in this Union a republican form of government " is the language of 
the Constitution. If I be right in the position I took in the commencement 
of this argument, that this government cannot be perpetuated as a republic 
without the education of the whole mass of the people, then to appropriate 
money for the education of the masses of the people would be a better mode 
of guarantying a republican form of government than to undertake to make . 
a guaranty by the use of the army and the sword. 

I do not think really there is any constitutional difficulty in the way of 
making this disposition of the public lands lor this very important purpose, 
and it seems to me there is no other possible disposition that can be made 
of this fund in the future which can result in anything like the benefit to 
the Government and the people of the United States that must result 
from the appropriation of it to the purposes of education, 

A large proportion of our public domain, which is the property of the people, 
has been appropriated by Congress to railroad corporations and other pur- 
j)oses, lookini^ to the settlement and development of the Territories. And 
while I am not prepared to say that this may at the time have been an improper 
use of a portion of the public lands, it seems to nie tliere can be no doubt 
that it is better to stop such approi^riations in future and apply the proceeds 
of their sale to the sacred purpose of educating the people. We will in this 
way establish new guaranties for the perpetuation of the Union, the main- 
tenance of the rights of the States, and the future peace and prosperity of 
the wiiole country. Let us give to the whole mass of our people, in all 
sections of the Union, the benefit of at least a common-school education ; 
and let us provide, as in the Prussian system, for a higher development of 
the brightest intellects that may be found in the public schools by such 
legislation and appropriations as will enable them to prosecute their studies 
till they have made themselves masters of the particular art or calling for 
which nature seems to have fitted them. 

It may be objected that it costs large sums of money to educate our 
whole people. 1 admit it; but it is an investment that pays back a heavy 
rate of interest. Who is most likely to make money, an educated enlight- 
ened people, or an ignorant, degraded people? Contrast the financial con- 



APPENDIX. 615 

dition of New England with that of Mexico, and tell me which accumulates 
fastest, an educated, scientific people, or a people who do not enjoy the 
benefits of education or science. The surest way to make money is to in- 
vest large sums of money in the education of our people and the develop- 
ment of the whole intellect of the country. 

Then let us lay the foundation of a system which shall be improved and 
built up, until the whole mass of the American people have the benefits 
that will soon result from it. This is the surest way to maintain and per- 
petuate our republican system of government, to develop the vast resources 
of our country, to encourage and protect the accunmlation of wealth and to 
transmit the blessings of good government to remotest generations. 



Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown in the Sknate of the United States, 
January 24, 1881. on Lanps in Severalty to Indians, and the 
Question, Is he a Citizen under the Fourteenth Constitutional 
Amendment, Discussed. 

The Senate having under consideration the Bill (S. No. 1773) to provide for the 
allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations, and to extend 
the protection of the laws of the States and Territories over the Indians, and for other 
purposes — 

Mr. Brown said : • 

Mr. President : If I understand the amendment offered by the senator from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] it is to confer all the rights of a citizen of the 
United States upon an Indian who has received his land on the re.servation 
of his tribe in severalty under this Bill. I incline very strongly to think that 
the Indian who has settled himself upon a homestead is a citizen already, 
under the fourteenth constitutional amendment; but if he is not, I am pre- 
pared to vote to make him one w'henever he takes his land in severalty, and 
to give him the rights of a citizen if he lacks anything. The history of our 
dealings with the Indians is a sad history. And 1 think we owe something 
to them. When the white men, few in number — 

Mr. Logan. If the senator will pardon me for a moment, I should like be- 
fore he goes on with his leinaiks to ask permission to offer an amendment to 
the Bill to come in after the last section, so that the amendment may be 
printed. I thought perhaps the discussion would not continue so long as it 
has, but as the Bill will probably go over until to morrow I should like to 
have the amendment printed. It is in the diiection of the senator's remarks, 
providing citizenship for the Indians. I ask that the amendment be printed. 

The pi-esiding officer (Mr. Garland) in the chair. If there is no objection, 
the amendment will be received and ordered to be printed. 

Mr. Brown. As I was stating when interrupted by the honorable senator 
from Illinois, when the white men appeared, few in number, upon the eastern 
shores of this continent the Indians possessed it. They were powerful; they 
were sovereign ; they were the monarchs of this country; and it was by their 
toleration that we settled in their dominions. There was no dictating to 
them by the persons M'ho first came here to settle on the eastern shores. The 
white men asked, may we purchase from you, the owners, a homestead here? 
The Indians met them with kindness and hospitality. When justice has been 
done to them I believe they have usually been proverbially kind. Negotia- 
tions were opened and certain tracts of land were conveyed, not by us to them, 
but by them to us. 

They had the power then at any time to have exterminated the settlements 
upon the eastern shores of this continent ; and it would have taken armies to 



616 APPENDIX. 

plant colonies here that could have sustained themselves. They did not think 
proper to do so. By their toleration the white people poured in and increased 
in numbers until they became most numerous, and then commenced to dic- 
tate to the Indians ; and the stronger we became and the weaker they be- 
came, the more illiberal and unjust was our policy toward them. It reached 
a point at a certain stage when it was adjudicated, I believe, by our supreme 
court, that we owned the whole territory and they were mere occupants. It 
is true we then treated them, I believe, as persons, but now the question is 
gravely considered in the senate and in the courts whether they are persons 
under the fourteenth constitutional amendment. The whole history of our 
dealing with them has, I think, been a history of wrong, mostly on our part. 
A distinguished officer of the United States army when approached on this 
subject on one occasion said he never knew the Indians violate a treaty, and 
he never knew the white men to observe one. This may not be liteially true, 
but there is too much truth in it. I will not go into a discussion of the vari- 
ous outrages that have been perpetrated upon them. As our people have ad- 
vanced farther west and found territory they desired occupied by the Indians 
we have soon found occasion to get up disturbances or difficulties with them 
that led first to war, then to victory on our part, then to negotiations and a 
cession of the territory on their part. 

This has been the sad history of our dealings with them. We have grown 
stronger and stronger until to-day we number more than fifty million per- 
sons. They have been reduced all told as the last report shows, excluding 
Alaska, to 255,938. 

At the first settlement of the country we were completely in their power, 
and they could dictate any terms they pleased to us. And when justly dealt 
by, they were kind and indulgent to us. Now they are in our power. We 
have a right, at least we have the power, to dictate any terms we choose. 
Have we dealt as liberally with them as they did with us? We have driven 
them back from time to time, from reservation to reservation. We have 
made treaties with them that they are to hold their reserves " as long as water 
runs and grass grows," but we always get rid of the treaty when we are dis- 
satisfied with it or when we covet the territory and determine to have it. 

The Bill now before us, as I understand, proposes to permit them to take 
in severalty lands in the proportion mentioned in the Bill within the reserva- 
tions assigned to them. I favor that Bill. I believe they should have the 
same right that the white man has to take homestead on their reservation, 
and we should then give them a fee-simple title to it as we give to the while 
citizen or settler. What inducement have they now to labor to acquire prop- 
erty, to build houses, to clear lauds, and to make homes comfortable for their 
future dwelling, when they know that they may be driven from it at any 
time when we choose to say they must leave? But when we have allotted 
the lands to them and each has his land in severalty, then he is entitled to tl e 
protection of the law ; he can go forward and improve his homestead. If he 
knows it is his, he has a stimulant to industry, and there is something to in- 
duce him to make a good citizen and to bind him to good conduct. 

The man who is a robber and desires to possess himself of the property of 
the Indian goes upon the reserve, steals his ponies or his cattle, and brings 
them away. Is it unnatural that the Indian should pursue? Is it unnatural 
that he should attempt to protect his rights of property? He would be less 
than a human being if he did not seek to protect them. The Indian fol- 
lows the robber and the result generally is a collision ; somebody is killed ; 
and then war. Allot his lands to him in severalty; give him the right to 
build houses, to clear plantations, to rais<e stock upon it, with the guaranty 
of the Government that he shall not be driven from it, and we shall in a very 



APPENDIX. 617 

short time see the progress in the far West that we have seen in the Indian 
Territory. 

We will soon find the Indians upon their homesteads advancing in civili- 
zation ; and under the benign influence of the Christian denominations, we 
shall see Sunday schools and churches planted among them; and instead of 
roving bands without fixed habitations, goaded to desperation by injustice 
and wrong, spreading death and destruction in their pathway, we shall find 
them in the comfortable homes of civilized man, not only a Christian people, 
but many of them cultivated and honorable citizens. ^ 

But the question is, shall the Indian be a citizen? I have said it seems to 
me he is a citizen already under the fourteenth constitutional amendment as 
soon as he severs his tribal relation and takes the homestead that the law 
now allows him to take. The fourteenth amendment is very broad in its 
provisions. It reads thus: 

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the 
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein 
they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the 
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State 
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, 
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the 
laws." 

Is the Indian a person ? He is the original sovereign of this continent, 
who had the title to it by a possession that may have run back a hundred 
generations; who met the white man when he came here kindly and frater- 
nally, who during the wars that we have had with him has shown gallantry 
of the highest order .md oftentimes military genius unsurpassed — is he not a 
person ? 

Was King Philip, who swayed the sceptre over six powerful tribes, and 
who when he felt that his rights had been outraged, by his great genius and 
powers of organization and persuasion, formed a lefigue of all the tribes of 
the Atlantic slope, in a c^use which they considered sacred, not a person? 
Was Logan, the great chief who never turned away from his cabin a white 
man who asked his protection, and who never took an undue advantage of 
an enemy, not a person? Was Tecumseh, whose military genius was not 
surpassed by any American ofiicer he met, and of whom the poet has said : 

" And long will the Indian warrior sing 
The deeds of Tecumseh, the royal," 

not a person? Are the educated leaders of the five civilized tribes, some of 
whom possess intelligence of the highest order, not persons ? Was Sequoyah, 
the author of the Cherokee alphabet and dictionary, who reduced their lan- 
guage to a system as complete as any other written language, not a person? 
The idea is absurd. If they are not persons what are they ? You hold that 
the meanest and most ignorant negro who comes from the deepest jungle of 
the darkest part of Africa and plants himself here is a person, and you pre- 
scribe naturalization laws by which he has a right to become a citizen. 

"Every human being," said Governor Horatio Seymour, " born upon our 
continent, or who comes here from any quarter of the world, whether savage 
or civilized, can go to our courts for protection, except those who belong to 
the tribes who once owned this country. The cannibal from the islands of 
the Pacific, the worst criminal from Europe, Asia, or Africa, can appeal to the 
law and courts for their rights of person and property; all save our native 
Indians, who, above all, should be protected from wrong." 

The Indian on the western plains who shows genias, and gallantry, and 
manhood, is denied even an existence as a person. 



618 APPENDIX. 

Note the language of the Constitution : 

"All persons boro or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the 
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." 

We claim that the jurisdiction of this country extends to the Pacific ocean. 
Was the Indian born within that limit? No one questions it. He does not 
ask you for naturalization. He cares nothing about the uniform rules you 
may make on that subject. He claims his right as a birthright. He was 
born in the United States, and he is a person. 

But is he subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? The amend- 
ment requires that he be born in the United States and subject to its juris- 
diction. That question has been expressly decided by th(^ supreme court of 
the United States in the tobacco case brought up from the Cherokee nation 
by Mr. Boudinot. The Cherokees claimed under their tribal relations and 
under an express section of a treaty between them and the United States that 
they had a right to sell or dispose of any of their property as they might 
think proper, without paying any tax to the government of the United States; 
and Mr. Boudinot and his partner established the tobacco I'actoiy in the Cher- 
okee nation. The officers of the United States seized it for non-payment of 
internal revenue, and the question came before the supreme court of the 
United States for final adjudication whether the Indian Territory was sub- 
ject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and whether it had a right to 
collect the revenue. Tiie Supreme Court held that the jurisdiction of the 
United States did extend into the Indian Territory, and that Congress had 
the power to annul the treaty and collect the revenue. Here then is the 
express decision by the highest judicial tribunal in the Government, that the 
Indians on their own reservation are subject to the jurisdiction of the 
United States. They were born in the United States, they are subject to 
the jurisdiction of the United States, and if they be persons there is no escape 
from the conclusion that they are citizens of the United States whether the 
Government may choose for the time to extend its criminal laws over them 
or their reservations, or not. And being citizens of the United States, they 
are entitled to the protection of the laws of the United States. 

Agai n : 

"Nor shall any State deprive any persnn of life, liberty, or property, without 
due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal 
protection of the laws." 

"Why is the Imban not a person? Then, if he is a person, you have no 
right to deny to him the equal protection of the laws. It is absurd to deny 
that the Indian is a person. But it mny be said that the next section of the 
fourteenth constitutional amendment disppses of this question. Let us see : 

" Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according 
to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each 
State, excluding Indians not taxed." 

Yes, in making up the representative population of the State you exclude 
the Indians not taxed; but you do more than that by this section. I read 
further. 

"But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for 
President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Con- 
gress, the executive and' judicial officers of a State, or the members of the 
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, 
being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any 
way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or otlier ci'ime, the basis 
of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the num- 
ber of such male citizens sliall bear to the whole number of male citizens 
twenty-one years of age in such State." 



APPENDIX. 619 

If the Indian is not a citizen because we exclude him in the count for rep- 
resentation on the ground that he is not taxed, then you must also exclude 
from tiie count the white citizens of any State who may be denied the right 
of voting. To illustrate: Suppose the population of a State be 1,000,000, 
and 100,000 of that number are Indians not taxed. When you go to make 
up the representative population of that State you would count it 900,000. 
Why? Because you exclude the Indians not t:ixed. Then suppose a State 
excludes from the ballot-box, for any cau^e, 10,000 of her male citizens over 
twenty-one, and the whole number of male citizens over twenty-one is 100,- 
000; then you deduct one-tenth, or 100,000 of the whole representative popu- 
lation of that State, because 10,000 of the voters have been excluded. I ap- 
prehend that the 100,000 white people are still citizens, although you are not 
allowed in making up the representative population to count more than 900,- 
000. Why? Because you have disfranchised enough of your citizens to ex- 
clude 100,000 from the count. So in the other case with the Indians. You 
exclude 100,000 of them not taxed in making up the count; but where, in 
what other part of the constitutional amendment, is there an exclusion of the 
Indian from the rights of citizenship? The Constitution does not exclude 
the Indian from the representative count, because he is an Indian or because 
he is not a citizen, but because he is an Indian tiot taxe'l. It is argued I sup- 
pose, that because he is excluded while not taxed from the representative 
count, therefore he is not a citizen. Then the 10,000 white people excluded 
in the other case are not citizens by the same parity of reasoning. Such 
reasoning is not sound. 

Then I hold that the Indian is a citizen of the United States when born 
upon the soil of the United States, and especially so when he severs his tribal 
relation and takes his allotment of land and settles down under the laws of 
the United States and pays taxes. It is ti-ue you exempt his land fri^m taxes 
by this bill for a certain length of time. During that period you would have 
to exclude him from the representative count, but the moment you tax him, 
then how does it stand? He is a person ; he was born in the United States', 
and is subject to its jurisdiction, and lie pays taxes as a citizen. W^hy is he 
not a citizen, and why is he not then counted in the representative apportion- 
ment? I should like for some senator to give a reason why. But we cannot 
truly say that the Indians are not now taxed. We have established trading 
stations among them, and all Administrations have appointed political favor- 
ites to conduct this business. We do not permit any one, under heavy pen- 
alties, to go into their territory and trade with them as the competitor of the 
political trader appointed by the Government. Tliey are compelled, there- 
fore, to sell their produce to those favorites who are put there by our Gov- 
ernment to make money off of them, and they are compelled to buy the 
goods they use from the same persons. The larger part of the money raised 
to support this Government is raised by a tariff upon imports. Almost every 
Indian tribe purchases from these favored traders ceitain amounts of im- 
ported goods, and every time he purchases a yard of cloth manufactured in a 
foreign country, or pound of sugar or any other article made abroad, he pays 
a tax to this Government. Then why is he not a citizen, entitled to the pro- 
tection of the laws made by this Government? Why is not his life sacred, 
iiiid why should not the assassin who takes it wantonly suffer the extreme 
penalty? Why is not his property entitled to the protection of the law, and 
why is not this protection extended to iiim on his application ? And if he is 
illegally imprisoned, why is he not entitled to the benefits of the writ of ha- 
beas co'pun, which have recently been extended to him by an able Federal 
judge in one of the Western States? 

Let it be borne in mind, furthermore, that this fourteenth amendment de- 



620 APPENDIX. 

dares that they "are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein 
they reside." I know in some minds there is a difficulty about State rights 
just here, about Congress declaring anybody a citizen. I think we are sim- 
ply making a declaration here in a statute of a right that is already secured 
by the Constitution, that he is a citizen whenever he has complied with these 
' terms. 

Under the amendment we may declare him a citizen, but may not be able 
to count liim in the representative population until he begins to pay taxes 
upon his land. But when he does he is then a person born in the United 
States, and a tax-payer ; and has all the rights of a citizen under the Consti- 
tution. 

As I do not care to stickle about the shadow of a question of State rights 
here, and as I hold he is a citizen whenever he has adopted the rules and con- 
formed to the plan laid down in this statute any way, I am willing to say in 
the statute in express terms that he is a citizen with all the protection and 
duties of any other citizen. Why give it to every person of every race and 
every color on the face of the earth who will come here and comply with our 
laws and not give it to the original inhabitants of our own country? He is 
^' to the manor born," and you have no right to drive him into the Pacific 
Ocean or to slaughter him with his women and children because he will not 
submit to the imperious dictates of any officer of the Government. When 
you make a treaty with him and assign to him certain limits and say, " This 
is your land, Mr. Indian," he has a right to stay there and be protected, and 
when he conforms to the laws conformed to by other citizens and is made a 
tax-payer he lias a right to claim citizenship, in the broadest sense, and 
you have no right to deny it to him. 

Our mode ot dealing with the Indian is in very striking contrast with that 
adopted by the British Government. Why are they not always engaged in 
war with the Indian in Canada? Why is it that they live in peace and har- 
mony there? It is because the British Government has dealt justly and 
fairly with the Indians. It has not driven them from post to pillar, but has 
a-isigned them reservations, where they have made their homes and built their 
houses and cleared their fields and raised their stock and erected their school- 
houses and churches. They have the rights of British subjects, and those 
rights are protected. They are treated humanely and kindly, and hence they 
are peaceable and loyal to that Government. Let it be borne in mind that 
the British Government has not driven them to her remotest boundary to be 
located. They have permitted them to take reservations on the spots where 
they were born, where they have always lived, and where their fathers are 
buried. I recollect, a few years ago, on a visit to Quebec, that I admired the 
valley of the Saint Charles as one of the loveliest I ever saw, and one that 
the white man might well covet. But in going ten miles from the city, I 
found in that beautiful valley on the river Lorette, which took its name from 
the tribe, the remnant of the tribe of the Lorettes living on the territory of 
their birth, and protected as British subjects, and they were as loyal as any 
other subjects that the British Government had in Canada. 

I visited the residence of the chief in the midst of that magnificent valley, 
where I was received kindly, and among other curiosities I was shown what 
were called the "crown jewels," prominent among them a bronze medal pre- 
sented to the chief by Prince Albert, and a silver medal presented by the 
Prince of Wales. These were regarded as treasures of the nation and the 
ti'ibe blessed the names of the donors. Their hearts swell with pride when 
they say, " I am a British subject." How marked is the contrast between 
that state of things and what we witness in our own country ! There the 
Indian has been justly and kindly treated and is a willing subject to the Gov- 



APPENDIX. 621 

ernment and a warm friend to the wliite man. Here he has been too often 
unjustly and harshly treated, and he is the natural enemy of his oppressors. 
There they are civilized, and in lari^e numbers converted to Christianity. 

Here on the plains the wild Indian is often butchered because he has de- 
fended his rights against some robber who plundered him of his prop- 
erty. 

It may be said we have the power to carry out this line of policy. That 
i-i true. But have we the right to do it? We are strong ; we are powerful. 
But there is a Being stronger and much more powerful than we are. And we 
should not forget that nations as well as individuals have to answer for 
wrongs and outrages committed by them. In what way we may be called to 
answer I do not pretend to say. Whether it will be by pestilence or war, or 
in what other manner we may be scourged for our cruelty to the aborigines 
of this country, I know not. But I believe the crimes committed by us 
against the Poncas, and in the mas.^ncre of the Cheyennes and other like out- 
rages, will meet their reward in national punishment. Our course is con- 
demned by the civilization of the age. It is condemned by humanity, and 
it is condemned by Christian men and women everywhere who understand 
the facts. 

I do not put the blame at the door of any particular person or official. I 
do not pretend to say where it rests. I do not call in question the motives 
of any one, but I do say the acts were criminal; they cannot be justified. 
What were the facts? The Cheyennes had been carried to the Indian Ter- 
ritory. They could not stand the climate and were dying fast with disease. 
Some three hundred escaped, and in midwinter, under the most adverse cir- 
cumstances, made their way back toward their own country, and had gone 
several hundred miles before the military overtook them. When summoned 
to surrender, they refused to do so without a guaranty that they should not 
be sent back to the Indian Territory, saying that they would rather fight till 
they died than to return. The commanding officer gave them to understand, 
and they did understand, that they should not be carried back to the Terri- 
tory if they would surrender. After the surrender they were carried to 
Fort Robinson, and an order was then sent to carry them to the Indian Ter- 
ritory. They refused to go, and about one hundred and fifty of them, being 
all that survived, were imprisoned, thinly clad, in midwinter, when the ther- 
mometer was below zero, for five days at a time without food or fire, and 
three days of the time without water, to compel them to consent to return to 
the Indian Territory, where their ranks had been fast decimated by dis- 
eases incident to the climate, and when they preferred death to a return. 
If we were determined to carry out our dictatorial policy and compel them 
to return to the reservation, why did we not hold them at the fort and treat 
them humanely till we had provided the means to transport them, and then 
send them under military escort? 

But I turn from this sickening theme, and will not dwell longer upon it by 
rehearsing scenes that attended the butchery of men, women, and children 
who attempted, by violence, to escape from this horrible imprisonment. 

If we treat the Indians as they do in Canada we may avoid wars. We 
need not have the army always chasing them if we will do justice to them 
and not be always robbing them. In my opinion it is much better to expend 
a few millions in locating them and giving them agricultural implements, and 
in educating and civilizing them and their children, than it is to expend a 
hundred millions in pursuing them over the plains and slaughtering them like 
wolves. 

But it is said by those disposed to give no quarters to the Indians that they 
are savage and cruel in their mode of warfare, often slaughtering indiscrim- 



622 APPENDIX. 

inately, men, women, and children. This is unfortunately true ; but what 
better could we expect from people who have none of the advantages of the 
proper training incident to civilization, and who feel that they are greatly 
oppressed? The point I make, however, is that those wars in which they 
practice cruelty have usually been provoked by bad white men or by the 
agents of "overnnjents at war with the United States. The Indian is not 
naturally disposed to go to war with the white man. Our early history shows 
that very clearly. It was only when their rights had been trampled upon by 
the white man that they took up arms. The rattlesnake is the most peace- 
able reptile on the plains. When you come in contact with him, if you will 
not trample upon him or practice aggression that causes him to believe that 
you intend to do it, he will crawl away and leave you; but when you place 
your foot upon him he declares war, and fights with savage desperation. So 
with these chddren of the forest, once so strong and now so weak and so near 
extinction. 

But it may be said that they are savages, and cannot be civilized and made 
good citizens. Our experience has taught us very differently. On that point 
1 want to call attention to two or ihree passages taken from the reports of 
the Indian agents for the civilized tribes. The agent says, speaking of these 
civilized tribes : 

" These people have recovered slowly from the effects of the war, but they 
are now in a position, if not disturbed, to become a strong and wealthy peo- 
ple. Their only fear is that the United States will forget her obligations, 
and in some way deprive them of their lands. They do not seem to care for 
the loss in money value so much as they fear the trouble and tlie utter anni- 
hilation of a great portion of their people, if the whites are permitted to 
homestead in all portions of their country, as is contemplated by so many of 
the measures before Congress." 

Again he sa\s: 

" Crime is no more frequent than in the adjoining States, and convictions 
by local authority are about as sure. The band of desperadoes, whites and 
Indians, who made their headquarters in the western part of this agency, and 
beyond, and who were the terror of the whole country last year, have all been 
killed or placed in the penitentiary. The feeling among these nations is 
stronger than ever for the enforcement of the law. 

'•The Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist denominations have missiona- 
ries here, and are doing good Work. Some of the missionaries have been 
liere for many years, and their influence for good is great. Their means for 
support is small, and they work hard, and only those remain in the field who 
possess a true missionary spirit. The church buildings are not expensive or 
ornamental, but are built for use. The Sabbath is well respected and ob- 
served Many of the Indians are ordained ministers. Some of them have 
been educated in the States, ai d returned to labor among their own people. 

" The schools of these nations are conducted upon the school system of the 
States. The English language is taught exclusively. Many of the boys and 
girls are being sent to the States to be educated at the expense of the nation. 
Many of the wealthy send thiir children East to be educated at their own 
expense. The result is a surprise to the stranger who meets so many well- 
educated people among the nations. There are also private schools with 
good attendance. I am of the opinion that the solution of the Indian ques- 
tion, if it is ever solved before the last one is driven from the face of the 
earth, will be in the education of the Indian children." 

It appears, therefore, from the reports from the five civilized tribes that 
they have made great progress in education and they are probably doing as 
much or more with the funds at their disposal now for the education of their 



APPENDIX. 623 

c?iildren than we are doing. Among them are intelligent divines, intelli- 
gent lawyers, intelligent judijes ; in a word they are a civilized people, with 
dwellings and farms and orchards and gardens and stock, and are last rival- 
ling ns in the arts of civilization. Why may nototlier tribes reach the same 
elevation with the same advantages? There is no reason why it may not 
be so. Indeed it is almost a certainty that it will be so. 

In the same report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs I find state- 
ments in reference to the wild tribes that have been located there. Even the 
Modocs, who were carried down under circumstances so unfavorable, are 
making, as the agent states, very decided progress toward becoming civilized. 
It may be said, then, why not carry out the policy that has been carried out 
heretofore, of taking them from their liomes West, and, after killing off a 
large proportion, carry the little remnant there, and get them all together. 
1 say it is cruelty; it is outrage. Put them upon reservations, upon their native 
heath, let them take their land in severalty on their reservations, encourage 
them to go to work, and when they have gone to work protect them in their 
labor and in the property they acquire by their labor. In a word, extend 
the protection of the law over them, and subject them to its penalties when 
they violate it. Treat them as persons, as human beings, not as wild 
animals. 

Mr. Teller. The senator says the Indians should have their lands in sev- 
eralty. I should like to inquire of the honorable senator if the progress in 
civilization made by the tive civilized tribes has not beeri with land in 
common ? 

Mr. Hrown. Yes ; I understand they hold the fee-simple in common. 

Mr. Teller. Why not pursue the same course then with the other tribes ? 

Mr. Brown. I have no doubt in a very short time they will abandon the 
practice of holdingthe fee-simple in common. With their order of intelli- 
gence and enlightenment they will soon have the same idea of individital 
rights of property and of individual protection that we hrave. It is true, as 
I understand our treaties, (and I am for strict good faith in the observance 
of treaties), we have no right to compel them to take their lands in severalty ; 
but I have no doubt in a few years they will divide them in severalty among 
themselves. As we started out wrong, I think in the future in dealing with 
the different tribes we should start right, and give the land to them in sev- 
eralty at the commencement. 

Mr. President, I want this matter put where there can be no doubt about 
it, so that when the Indians desire to conform to the laws they shall have 
the right to do it under the protection of the law. 

in the treaty made in 1854 with the Omahas there was provision made 
that tlieir lands might be allotted in severalty whenever the President thinks 
propel- to do so. I understand that they have sent petition after petition to 
the President to permit the division, and let them have their lands in sever- 
alty, but that a deaf ear has always been turned to them. The time has not 
yet come when the President has in his discretion concluded that it was best 
to permit them to have those treaty regulations carried out. I would make 
the provision imperative, that when they comply with certain provisions laid 
down by law they shall have a right to the patent. Take the Omahas, for 
instance. As they have not any land in severalty, what inducement is there 
for the industrious, frugal, attentive Indian to labor for his advancement 
and the advancement of his family ? If he undertakes to build a house and 
clear lands and raise stock he knows not what time he may be driven away 
from it. He knows not whether under a new apportionment that land will 
fall to him or to another, or whether it will be taken by the white man. 
Our own race would neither build houses, clear lands, nor make other im- 



G24 APPENDIX. 

provements undei* any such uncertainty as to their right to enjoy the fruits 
of their labor in future. 

If the Omaha says, " The treaty provides that I may have my land in 
severalty," the reply is, "You have never a^ot theexeicise of the discretion of 
the President to permit you to do it." What encouragement is there then ? 

I understand there are bad Indians in every tribe and there are good In- 
dians ; there are lazy Indians and there are industrious Indians; and the 
way to encourage industry is to let each man who labors with his hands feel 
that he labors on his own soil and is protected by the laws of the country 
that are thrown over him, and, like a shield, guaranty him against robbery 
and wrong. Then you stimulate his industrj^; he has something to work 
for ; but where he is driven from post to pillar at the will of the government, 
or an official of the government or of the army, what inducement do you 
hold out to him to act industriously or to make him a comfortable home or 
to make his family comfortable and happy V None whatever. We hold out 
the reverse. The ancestors of the present Indians once held the whole con- 
tinent in fee-simple. We have taken it from them. Is it asking too much 
of us, when we have a vast unoccupied territory that the white man is not 
yet able to cultivate, that the descendants of the original proprietors of the 
whole should have the privilege of locating homesteads on tiiis vast domain 
where they can labor for a livelihood ai]d be protected in tlie fruits of their 
labor ? 

I understand it is the wish of the chiefs of many of the tribes to continue 
the tribal relations. They are like all other human beings, I suppose ; they 
love power, and they want to continue things as they are so that they may 
have control of their people. Theiefuie they carry them from point 
to point, and frequently we see that they come here and sell out ; the coun- 
try is disposed of by four or five men agreeing that they will move off a 
hundred or a thousand miles from the place of their nativity, ai.d all the 
tribe must leave their homes because a certain amount of money lias been 
spent on four or five chiefs here. I say to encourage the common Indians to 
take their homesteads and settle down upon them and go to work and aban- 
don the tribal relations and become peaceable citizens of the United J5tates,is in 
my judgment the best solution of the Indian question. As long as they roam 
or are driven from one point to another we cannot expect they will settle 
down and become good citizens. Wlienever you hold out the inducement 
and say to the Indian, " Take your homestead here, build your house, clear 
your plantation, raise your stock, send your children to school, and he who 
comes here to steal your pony shall atone for it in the penitentiary ; he who 
takes your life shall go to the gallows, and you, too, shall conform to the 
laws or suffer the penalties," you will find them or at least a large proportion 
of them ready to do it. If there be those among them who will not do it, subject 
them to the laws until the penal statutes properly executed have brought 
them to subjection. That is the way to civilize them, in my opinion. Do 
justice to them. I do not believe there is any other plan that will ever solve 
this Indian question short of their extermination from the continent. 

I knew a few of them in my own State who staid when the Cherokee tribe 
left there, mostly half-breeds, some quadroons. They have taken reserva- 
tions there, and are as good citizens as any we have in the State. They are 
intelligent,' they are law-abiding, they are orderly; part of them are good 
Christian men and women, and they are exemplary citizens. Why may it 
not be so elsewhere if we give them the same opportunities ? 

I trust, Mr. President, that we shall pass this bill in a shape that will give 
every Indian a home on his reservation, and guaranty it to him and his 
children for all time to come, and that the power of. alienation will be re- 



APPENDIX. 625 

stricted until he has learned the rights and the duties of an American citi- 
zen. After that let him and his posterity take care ot it or alienate it as tnny 
any one else. Fix a reasonable time; exempt their homestead from taxation. 
After that time there is no further exclusion in the fourteenth constitutional 
omendment in the way of counting them in the representative population of 
the States where they may reside, and no reason that 1 can see why they 
may not be full-fledged citizens and voters. 



Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, Delivered in the Senate of the 
United States, February 17, 1881, on the Funding Bill. 

Mr. Brown said : 

Mr. President: So much has been said upon this question that the 
Senate is doubtless fatigued with the discussion and they could not patiently 
hear further speeches of any great length. It is not my purpose, therefore, 
to enter into a general discussion of the questions involved in the issue now 
before us. I am unwilling, however, to cast my vote without stating a few 
of the reasons which control my judgment in the premises. 

As has already been said by other senators, we have paid off a large part 
of the public debt incurred by the war within the last ten years; and 
while the taxes of our people have been heavy they have not been such as 
to prevent us from moving forward to a high tide of prosperity. The 
country as a whole has probably at no time been more prosperous than it 
now is. Within the last twenty years the area of production, or the increase 
in the acreage of cultivation, has been enormous. Our population has in- 
creased at a rapid rate, and it has already reached over fifty millions. We 
have a vast territory of unsurpassed fertility. The American people are 
a hardy, laborious people, full of energy and enterprise, ambitious for suc- 
cess, and determined to accumulate wealth. During the last few yeai's our 
principal crops have been about doubled in quantity, and our facilities for trans- 
portation have been- so largely increased that all our productions of every 
character, to say nothing of our manufactured articles, find a ready market 
either at home or in foreign ports. Not many years ago corn was a very 
common fuel in parts of the West during the winter season where wood 
was scarce, and wheat and pork and other productions of the country found 
scarcely any market, leaving the people on the fertile plains of the West, 
without market, with but little to stimulate their energy or enterprise, 
content to make enough produce to live upon, and to remain at home and 
enjoy it. Now we have some ninety thousand miles of railroad in operation, 
penetrating every section of the country that has been settled by our people, 
and pressing forward into the uncultivated wilderness, leading and induc- 
ing population to follow. This state of things, together with the wars and 
oppressions of some of the European governments, has brought to our 
shores a largely increased number of iiumigrants, each of whom finds a 
home in a rich country, where by labor he can soon make himself and his 
family comfortable. 

A few years ago our exchanges were conducted almost entirely upon the cot- 
ton and tobacco crops of the South. Now the grain crop and the meat crop 
of. the West enter very largely into the account. Why? Because the mar- 
kets of the world are now open to these productions, which can be sent over 
long lines of railroad at low rates to the coast and then rapidly transported 
across the ocean upon steamships. The result has been that the last few 
years have shown an enormous balance of trade in our favor, which has 
poured a stream of gold into the United States from other countries to pay 
40 



626 APPENDIX. 

the balance due to us resulting from the usual interchange of commodities. 
This stream of gold and the ]nrge amounts that are made at home and taken 
from our mines is seeking investment. Large sums have fallen into the hands 
of capitalists of great wealth, many of whom do not desire to risk their fortunes 
upon speculation or upon the chances of an active business, and they naturally 
seek, even at a low rate of interest, first-class investments that are perfectly 
safe and free from taxation. 

Not only is this true of the capitalists of large means, who invest heavily 
in the securities of the United States, but it is also true of a vast number 
of our best citizens and laboring people, who are making something to invest 
and who desire to place it where it will be secure. And a bond on the 
United States, perfectly secure, if it is not taxable, which pays 3 per cent, 
interest, is a better investment for even a small capitalist than he finds in 
most of the channels into which he can put his capital. I think 1 may 
venture to say that a large proportion of the farmers of the United States, 
after they have paid all the expenses attending the production of their crops, 
and all the taxes assessed by tlie Government of the United States, the gov- 
ernments of the States, and of the counties where they reside, do not make 
clear more than 3 per cent, upon the ca]iital invested. The same is true 
of a large proportion of the holders of real estate in our villages, towns, and 
cities. Real estate, when in the hands of men who manage well, where it 
is well located and properly improved, pays a better per cent. 

But in every city, town, or village in the Union it would be found that 
much of the real estate is unimproved, and the owneis are paying tax upon 
it without income. And of the improved real estate there is a large propor- 
tion that is not in the best location or under the best management, that 
does not pay 3 per cent, after all expenses of repairs, insurance, and State, 
county, and municipal taxation have been paid. A'or do I believe that the 
whole capital invested in railroads or in mining in this country has paid 3 per 
cent, net to the owners. Some railroads and some mines have paid largely, 
but I speak of the average, of the whole sum invested. And our people in 
this condition are beginning to calculate and properly to estimate their true 
situation. Hence it is that whenever the bonds of the United States have 
been offered, as on a late occasion, to the populace, they have taken thera 
readily at the ruling prices even as low as 4 per cent, when our bonds 
brought no such premium as they now bring. And I have no hesitancy in 
saying that if this loan is offered to the people of the United States, and 
is placed within their reach in the different cities and larger towns all over the 
Union for as much as thirty days after having been adveitised, that the coun- 
try wdl be astonished at the amount that will be taken by citizens of small 
means, who desire to Jay by something that they can calculate upon as 
positively certain, and that is absolutely free from the demands of the tax 
gatherer. 

Senators doubt whether we can place bonds redeemable after five years 
at the option of the Government, but which the Government is not under 
obligation to redeem until the end of twenty years, usually called five- 
twenties, upon the market successfully at 3 per cent. I do not entertain 
any doubt on this subject. Fifteen years ago if the United States wanted 
to borrow money they had to pay 6 per cent. Then came a loan of 5 per 
cent., that was readily taken ; and a loan at 4|, and then a 4 per cent, 
bond, and now the 4 per cent, bonds are selling in the market at 113 to 114. 
This shows the increased confidence of our people in our public securities, 
and their increased ability to purchase them. And the immense increase in 
the productions and the manufactures of the country, and the vast increase 
in the balance of trade in our favor, have placed in the hands of our people 



APPENDIX. 627 

the means to gratify their disposition to invest in the bonds of their Govern- 
ment at a rate which, while it seems low, pays them a better income with 
absolute certainty than they can find elsewhere. 

Reference has been made to the English consols?, which at 3 per cent, 
have been most of the time a little under par. Yet it is admitted that with- 
in the last few years they have reached par. It is said, however, that this 
is on account of the long term they have to run, or, rather, on account of the 
fact that they run perpetually ; and the owner is sitnply entitled to his 3 per 
cent, interest on the investment. That, with a certain class of wealthy 
men who desire to invest, is in their favor, and causes them to bear a better 
price. But another large class who would rather see the end of the loan oc- 
casionally, and know a particular day in the future, when they can demand, 
not what may be the market price of the consol, but the par value of it, 
would prefer that it should have some fixed period to run. 

But there is another reason why United States bonds are naturally worth 
more in the market than British consols. The incomes from consols are 
taxable ; our bonds are absolutely free from taxation. Again, this Govern- 
ment has a territory immensely larger and more productive than the 
British Government possesses. I do not speak now of the British colonies, 
many of which, when you deduct the expense of their wars, are not very re- 
munerative to their mother country ; but I speak of the domain that proper- 
ly belongs to the British Government, and constitutes its home territory. 
There is not, therefore, room with them for the great expansion that we 
have in this country. There is nothing like so large a population in the 
British Isles as we have here. And while, on account of the fact that the 
country is much older, there has been a larger accumulation of wealth in 
proportion to numbers, there is no reasonable prospect that the wealth of 
that country will remain, as now, in excess of the wealth of this country in 
proportion to numbers. 

But there is still another significant fact. The British Government, with 
all its strength and its naval power, is all the time engaged in war with 
somebody, which compels it to maintain large armies and navies. Those 
wars are expensive, and it cannot be denied that iu the British Islands there 
is a growing discontent with the government. 

At this very time the Irish question is one of great difficulty, and no one 
can Siiy that the inhabitants ot the British Islands may not be cutting each 
other's throats within the next six months. The tenants and peasantry 
everywhere in the islands are becoming restless at the present land laws and 
the present high rents they have to pay. This r* stlessness is also permeating 
the laboring tnasses in the iron and coal mines and the manufacturing districts ; 
and stable and powerful as the British Govern tnent has been for a long while 
its prospects for future peace, prosperity, and stability are not, probably, as 
great as those of the United States. Its old land system and its aristocracy 
arein danger. We have passed through our internal struggle. It is not at all 
probable that we shall have another such struggle within a century or probably 
centuries to come. All patriots unite in the hope that we may never have 
another. Our country, then, with a well established government, and with 
resources unequalled by any other country, offers to the world assurances of 
peace, prosperity, stability, and ability to pay, that neither the British Gov- 
ernment nor any other government offers. 

We feel that we have an exemption from future foreign wars possessed by 
few other governments. Prior to the late war between the Stales, this Gov- 
ernment was considered by the leading governments of Europe as a second 
class power in a military point of view. But our own struggle developed on 
each side immense strength, gallantry, and skill. The Southern Confederacy, 



628 APPENDIX. 

notwithstanding the great disadvantages under which it labored, brought 
into the field its half a miUion of gallant men. The Northern States, after a 
long struggle of four years, brought into the field an army of sufficient power 
to crush the Confederate armies and dictate terms of peace. We have now 
laid down our past differences. The two armies and the two sections are 
now united, and in case of a foreign war the troops who fought under oppos- 
ing banners in the late struggle would rally together, as a united force, 
grand and invincible, under the old flag of the Union. Our Government, 
with all its sections and all the States again cordially united, can put 5,000,- 
000 men into the field if the exigencies should require it. And while we lack 
a navy, and on that account might be exposed to temporary inconvenience 
in case of a foreign war with a naval power, still the final result could not be 
doubtful. It is not the interest of any foreign power to attack us with our 
present united strength, nor is it our disposition unjustly to attack any other 
power. Therefore we have a freedom from war and the expenses of large 
armies and navies for a long period to come, which it is not likely Great 
Britain or any other of the great powers will enjoy. We naturally have a 
right therefore to expect, these points being all understood, that capitalists 
and persons generally who seek investment would pay a little higher price 
for United States bonds than they would for the securities of any other 
government. 

In view of our vast territory, our great population, our immense resources, 
our unbounded facilities for transportation, our rapidly increasing crops, our 
growing manufactures, our limitless mineral wealth, the growth of our 
educational, moral and religious institutions, our freedom from prospective 
wars, the heavy balance of trade in our favor, and for other reasons that I 
might assign, but which I will not weary the Senate by giving at present, I 
shall vote tor a 3 per £ent. bond, redeemable at any time after five years and 
payable at the end oi twenty. And I do not entertain the slightest doubt 
that the bonds can be negotiated in the market and disposed of at par with- 
out any difficulty. 

One word about another point connected with the bill before I take my 
seat. On pages three and four I find the following language : "And tlie 
expense of preparing, issuing, advertising, and disposing of the bonds and 
Treasury notes authorized to be issued shall not exceed one-half of 1 
per cent." 

What is the meaning of this, and what is the amount here given? It 
means that this one-half of 1 per cent, upon the whole amount is to be given 
or used for the preparation and negotiation of the bonds. 

In other words it means that we are to pay for the printing, executing, 
advertising and disposing of the bonds one-half of 1 per cent. The House of 
Representatives fixed it at one-fourth of 1 per cent. ; but the Finance Com- 
mittee of the Senate has thought proper to change it to one-half of 1 per cent., 
and we were told by the honorable chairman of the committee, on day before 
yesterday, in substance, that he would not desire to take the responsibility of 
possibly defeating the loan by refusing to pay as much as one-half of 1 per cent, 
for negotiating it ; and he called upon senators to know whether they would de- 
sire to incur such responsibility. For one, I have no hesitation in responding 
that I will with pleasure take the responsibility of voting to pay a smaller sum 
for that service. What is the sum we propose to pay ? The whole issue of bonds 
and Treasury notes which are interest-bearing, which it is proposed to put 
upon the market, amounts to $700,000,000. One-half of 1 per cent, for pre- 
paring and negotiating the bonds is to be paid on this whole amount. 
What is it ? The snug little sum of |3,500,000. Now, I will be pardoned 
for, expressing the belief that it will not cost half a million topay forengrav- 



APPENDIX. 629 

ing, printing, issuing, and advertising these securities. Then what do we 
pay the other three millions for? For disposing of the bonds ? 

In other words, we give that amount as a bonus ; or, in steamship phrase^ 
which has been po often used here within the last few days, we give it as a 
subsidy to a certain syndicate of bankers for the trouble of negotiating this 
loan for us. 

Now, if I were not a senator, I should like very much to take this Contract, 
and guaranty the negotiation of the whole loan at pai\ And rather than 
miss the contract I might be willing to pay out of this bonus or subsidy, if 
it becomes necessary, to the national Democratic executive committee or to 
the national Republican executive committee, whichever may be in power and 
have the right to expect ifc, tlie sum of a million of dollars to aid in conduct- 
ing the campaign of 1884, if party exigencies should require it. And I 
should feel then that I had made the handsome sum of about two millions 
for my trouble. And if I could not succeed with the present syndicate, with 
$700,000,000 of United States securities under my control, I could readily 
form one with which I would succeed. And if my syndicate, after the popu- 
lace had been served, should have the good fortune to take a large propor- 
tion of the honds, I should not entertain any doubt that within the next 
twelve months we would make more than another one-half of one per cent, 
in premiums upon the bonds so taken. 

But we are warned by senators that if we should offer a 3 per cent, bond 
and the negotiations should fail, and we were unable to dispose of it at par, 
we should lose within the next year f 12,000,000 in interest, being the differ- 
ence between the rate we are now jiaying on the bonds and the rate of 3^ 
per cent. And this is held over us, probably not as a rod, but as a strong rea- 
son why we should issue a 3^ per cent, bond instead of a 3 per cent. But 
there is another side to this picture. Suppose we should issue a 3i per cent, 
bond, when we could readily sell a 3 per cent, bond, what would this cost us? 
It would be an addition of three and a half millions per annum to the inter- 
est we would pay on the new loan. If the bond is a 5-20 we would be 
obliged to pay interest on it at this rate for five years. That would amount to 
117,500,000. And if we could not at the end of the five years exercise the 
option given to the (Government, and redeem the bond for another five 
years, it would add $17,500,000 more to the burdens of the people. In other 
words, in the event we should issue a 31 per cent, bond, when we could ne- 
gotiate a 3 per cent, bond, we would pay out of the taxes raised from the 
people $35,000,000 more interest in ten years than we would pay upon the 
3 per cent. loan. And there would be no way of getting rid of $17,500,000 
of this amount, and we would be obliged to pay it. Therefore the chances 
for loss to the Treasury are greater if we issue a 3| per cent, bond than if we 
issue a 3 per cent. bond. In the one case we luight possibly lose $12,000,000 
of interest ; in the other case we would lose $17,500,000 of interest ; and if 
the bonds should run ten years we would lose $35,000,000 in interest. Tak- 
ing into the account the chances in favor of the negotiation of a 3 per cent, 
loan, the jirospects for loss are much greater in the event we determine to 
issue a 3^ per cent. bond. 

But it is intimated that the credit of the Government would suffer in that 
case. Why so ? It would simply show that we had not been able to do 
that which other nations have not been able to do — float at par a 3 per cent, 
bond. But how would this injure our credit? Would it make our four per 
cents, now in the market less valuable ? The only effect would be that we 
must continue to pay the present rate of interest on the bonds until another 
loan is offered to the country at a rate that could be negotiated. 

But I am so thoroughly satisfied that there will be no difficulty about the 



630 APPENDIX. 

negotiation of a 3 per cent, loan that I shall, as already stated, not hesitate 
to cast my vote in favor of 3 per cent. We have no right to tax the labor of 
this country or the property of this country to pay the capitalists or anybody 
else a higher rate of interest than the lowest rate at which the bonds of the 
Government can be readily negotiated. 

And if we retain section 5 of the bill as it came from the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and compel the national banks in future to deposit the 3 per cent, 
bonds, and no others, as security for their issues, we will make assurance 
doubly sure. 



Speech of Hon. Joseph E. BROVi^N, of Georgia, Delivered in the Sen- 
ate OF THE United States, March 28, 1881, in Replt to Senator 
Mahone, OF Virginia, on That Peculiar Coincidence. 

The Senate having lander consideration the resolution submitted by the Senator from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] for the election of officers of the Senate. 

Mr. Brown said : 

Mr. President: I had hoped I should see the speech of the senator from 
Virginia [Mi'. Mahone] which was delivered yesterday, in the Record this 
morning. I predicated that hope on the fact that the senator seemed to read 
his speech, not from written manuscript as is often done, but from printed 
slips. The natural supposition was, therefore, that it had been revised and 
that there was no good reason why it should not go into the Record this 
morning after such careful preparation. I was, however, disappointed in 
that reasonable expectation, and I am left to make some remarks in reply 
to-day witliout having that rather remarkable production before me. 

One of the points the senator dwelt upon with most satisfaction was what 
he considered a dissection of my own record. Possibly it is not very inter- 
esting to the country, although the senator thought proper to bring it before 
the country and grossly to misrepresent it. He took the position that I had 
been inconsistent. 1 must admit that most men who have been long in pub- 
lic life have sometimes been placed in positions that appear to be inconsistent 
with each other, and I must admit that the position that I now occujjy on 
certain questions is not the position I occupied at the commencement of the 
war, now known as the war of the rebellion. I went into that contest to 
maintain slavery and State sovereignty. These were the two cardinal points 
upon wliich we planted ourselves. I sincerely believed we were right in both. 
The war, however, has settled both questions. Slavery is abolished and I am 
now content that it is abolished. Then I was a pro-slavery man. To that 
extent, therefore, I may be said to be inconsistent, or to have changed posi- 
tion, growing out of the results of the war. I honestly and earnestly advo- 
cated then and believed in State sovereignty. The results of the war and 
the amendments to the Constitution have so changed our situation that I 
cannot and do not contend to-day that the States are sovereign in the sense 
in which I then claimed that they were sovereign. Therefore, on these ques- 
tions I may be properly said to be, as most Southern men are, inconsistent. 
I do not contend now for what I claimed then. 

The senator said, as he is a readjuster, that I had a very happy faculty of 
readjusting myself to fit the circumstances. I do not know with how much 
justice I might claim that faculty ; but there is one point of readjustment I 
can never attain. I would be wholly unable to readjust myself so as to oc- 
cupy the position that the senator from Virginia occupies to-day before this 
Senate and this country. I may readjust myself to many circumstances, but 
I could not afford to be a party to that kind of readjustment. If he enjoys 



APPENDIX. 631 

either the distinction or the notoriety he has lately attained, I confess I ratlier 
pity than envy him. 

The senator would have you believe that T was a very ardent rebel. I plead 
guilty to that charge in the fullest sense of the term. When I went into that 
contest I went in deliberately, with my mind made up that I was right. I 
was a secessionist, and when I saw that my State had determined to Sfcede 
I did not choose to have any other power occupy the forts or arsenals of that 
State, as the Government of the 'United States had occupied Fort Sumter at 
Charleston. Hence, I took the responsibility to seize those forts and hold 
them; and situated as I then wa'^, 1 considered it my duty. 

He was a little wrong on one point, however, when he stated, if I under- 
stood him correctly, that I seized tlie arsenal at Ant>usta before tlie State 
seceded. That was a day or two afterwanl; but I will give him the full 
benefit. If it had been necessary to have done it to protect the arms that 
were there and preserve them for our cause, I would have seized tliem in ad- 
vance ; I liave no hesitation about that. I went into the contest lilie the 
Bostonians did in the Revolution. They threw the tea overboard and fought 
the battle of Lexington before hostilities had been declared; tliey saw the 
contest had to come; they prepared for it. They took time by the forelock 
and did all they could to strengthen their position. 

That is what I did at the conuneiicement of the war we now term the re- 
bellion. I have no regrets about it. Situated as I was then, with the sur- 
roundings at that time, and engaged in the cause I was at the time, I did 
what I should do again under like circumstances. In other words, to speak 
more correctly, I considered that the facts and circumstances by which I was 
surrounded not only justified my action then, but made it my duty to do what 
I did. 

But the honorable senator says that 1 had ambition for the presidency of 
the Confederate States. There, as in some other cases, his statement is very 
wide of the facts. There happen to be living witnesses to-day who know 
that I positively refused to permit my name to be used for any Confederate 
position whatever. I had attained — he says I am ambitious — a point of am- 
bition that he did not attain in Virginia, and failing to attain it he conceived 
the idea of abandoning the Democracy. I was governor of my State at the 
time; I sought no higher position; my ambition was gratified. The people 
of my State honored me with that position not only once, but for four suc- 
cessive terms by four different elections. That was honor enough to satisfy 
the ambition of a reasonable man. It fully satisfied mine at the time. There- 
fore the senator is much mistaken when he says I was ambitious for any Con- 
federate office. I had no disappointed ambition on that question, as he seems 
to have in the matter of tiie governorship of his own State. 

The senator made the further charge that I was the first to confiscate 
private property at Savannah. This charge is without foundation. A citi- 
zen of Georgia had purchased two hundred stands of muskets in New York 
after Georgia had seceded, but before there was any war or any blockade. 
The chief of police of the city of New York, who was understood to act under 
the authority of the Governor of that State, seized the guns and would not 
permit them to be sent to Georgia. I presented that fact to the Governor of 
New York and demanded their immediate release; and as they were not 
promptly released, I ordered all the ships belonging to citizens of New York 
in the harbor of Savannah to be seized and held until the guns were delivered, 
and no longer. I notified the authorities of New Yoik that Mr. Gazaway B. 
Lamar, of that city, was my agent to receive the guns. After some days' 
delay I was informed by Mr. Lamar that they had agreed to release the guns. 
I then released the ships ; but before they had all left the harbor I was noti- 



632 APPENDIX. 

fied that the authorities of New York again refused to permit the guns to be 
sent forward, and I then ordered the ships to be detained till they were sent. 
Not many days afterward the guns were shipped to Savannah, and I then 
released the ships of the citizens of New York. This is doubtless the confis- 
cation to which the senator refers. A mere statement of the facts is a suffi- 
cient refutation of the charge. I required the guns, which were the property 
of a citizen of Georgia, to be sent forward, and I held the ships until they 
were sent, and then discharged them. The guns were seized m violation of 
right and of the comity usual between States. The ships were seized to be 
held until the guns were delivered. I had as much right to hold them as the 
authorities of New York had to hold the guns, and I did it until I had accom- 
plished my object. I had no other remedy but the one to which I resorted, 
and I made that effective. 

But the senator says that when the cause of the Confederacy began to 
wane I withdrew with my militia from the starry cross. This is what he is 
reported in the New York Herald this morning to have said. I have to quote 
his language from recollection and from the best sources in my power, as he 
has not thought proper to give it to us in the Record. There again he is 
misinformed about the facts, or he wilfully misrepresents the facts. I never 
withdrew with tny militia from the Confederate cause. True, I differed 
with the Confederate authorities on the conscript question. J had gone, as 
I have already stated, into the contest to maintain slavery and State sover- 
eignty. When the Confederate Congress passed the conscript act I felt, 
whether right or wrong, tiiat we had not much State sovereignty left when 
we gave the President of the Confederate States the power to organize regi- 
ments of conscripts, and to appoint every officer down to a second lieutenant. 

There was a long correspondence between me and the President of the 
Confederate States on that question; but while I refused to have anything 
to do with the execution of the conpcript act in Georgia, I notified him that 
under the other provisions of that act I would not throw tiie slightest obstacle 
in the way of its execution by him. And let me here state that there was 
never a single instance during the struggle when the President of the Con- 
federate States called on me for troops of a character furnished by any other 
Confederate State, or such as were subject to Confederate service, that I did 
not furnish or tender not only the quota called for, but a larger quota than 
he called for — not a single instance. 

Now, as to my withdrawing the militia. When General Slierman's army 
invaded Georgia I called out a class of our people who were not subject to 
conscription, and had not been called out in large numbers by the other Con- 
federate States; I called the old men up to fifty-five years of age and the 
boys down to sixteen, and I required the clerks of the courts, the sheriffs, the 
ordinaries, the tax collectors and receivers, and all the other officers of every 
character to go with them, to unite in regiments, electing their own officers ; 
and I raised of that class not subject to conscription about ten thousand men 
that I placed under that grand old hero. General Johnston, as soon as possible 
after Sherman had invaded the State. They remained under his control 
until he was superseded by General Hood; and then I placed them under 
General Hood's control. They stayed in the trenches around Atlanta until 
the city was surrendered, and both Johnston and Hood placed on record 
high commendation of their gallantry and the distinguished service they 
rendered in the defence of that city and of the State. 

When General Hood made his march to the west he did not desire to carry 
this class of militia with him ; the boys and the old men could not iiave stood 
his hard march, and they had only been organized of a class not subject to 
conscription, for the defence of their own State. When he left Georgia for 



APPENDIX. 633 

Tennessee General Sherman turned upon his heel and marched for the sea- 
coast. I kept that militia force under arms and annoyed him all I could on 
his passage through the State. General Gustavus W. Siiiitli, a distinguished 
officer of the old army, was the major-general in command of them, and 
when I sent them around by rail to Savannah, when Sherman was on his 
march through the State, General Smith asked me if it became necessary to 
throw them into any other State whether I consented, and I told him without 
hesitation to do so; and history records the fact that he carried them across 
into South Carolina, and they fought there the battle of Honey Hill and won 
a victory over a regular Federal force. They were then returned to Georgia, 
and I surrendered those gallant troops after Lee and Johnston had surren- 
dered. 

That is the way and that was the time that my militia were withdrawn 
from the starry cross. I was in the field with them, aiuong the last who 
stood by the cause. The battle of Griswoldville was fought by them against 
part of Sherman's troops as they went through Georgia, one of the bloodiest 
of the war for the numbers engaged. This was the way of their withdrawal 
from the cause of the starry bars. They came at my call to defend their 
State, and they remained under arms in its defence until the armies of the 
Confederacy had been surrendered. Tn the mean time they had fought a 
battle and gained a glorious victory upon the soil of our beloved sister State 
of South Carolina. 

It may not be known to the senator, but it is very well known to the Gen- 
eral of the armies of the United States to-day, that while he was invading 
Georgia and pressing us to the very last ditch he sent a messenger to invite 
me to a conference with him, with a view to an adjustment, and I declined 
to hold it, saying I had no power to speak for the Confederacy, and that 
Geor^'ia, having gone into the contest with her Confederate sisters, would be 
the last to retire and leave them in the lurch. No ; I was not untrue to the 
Confederate caitse ; I spurn the imputation; nor were the troops of Georgia 
untrue. The militia of Georgia acted gallantly in its defence till the last 
moment. Therefore that charge made by the honorable senator falls to the 
ground as grossly unjust and absolutely untrue. 

But the senator says at the end of the war T acted with the Republican 
party for a time. I stated that the other day. There was nothing new in it. 
I also stated the other day the reasons why I did it. It has never been ques- 
tioned that I did it. He says, however, that when the Democracy went after 
me he retired. There is a little mistake just there in dates. If I understand 
the senator from Virginia correctly, he never retired from the Democracy, 
nor was he ever lacking in his zeal for the Democracy, until he was beaten 
for governor, in the Democratic convention of 1877. I returned to the De- 
mocracy, or they returned to me, whichever you choose to call it, in 1872, 
when they planted themselves upon the reconstruction platform and nomi- 
nated Greeley, and I have acted steadily with them from that day until this, 
in no instance varying from my loyalty to the party or failing to stand by its 
organization and its principles. I do not think the senator quit it until his 
defeat for governor. He felt possibly a little of that ambition that he errone- 
ously attributes to me when he says that I wanted to be President of the 
Confederate States. He did want, if we may judge him by his acts, to be 
Governor of Virginia, and failed. Up to that period who had ever heard 
that he was a readjusterV Since that period, if he is correctly reported — t 
do not know whether he is or not, but I take the evidence before me and pre- 
sume it to be correct — he did not oppose the payment of the thirty-two mill- 
ions of debt by Virginia, but only advocated, even after that period, I beheve 
it was, a reduction of the interest to three per cent. I will ask the clerk to 



634 APPENDIX. 

read a slip that I send hitn, which is reported to be an extract from the speech 
of General William Mahone, at Mozart Hall. 

The Chief Clerk read as follows : 

" Impoverished and disheartened as are our people, onerous and oppressive 
as is the present rate of taxation, opposed as I liave beeu and still am to 
such increase, thereof, and certain as I am that such increase to some extent 
must be necessary after 1880, yet to secure the great object of a settlement 
of this question and to avoid that direst of all calamities to the State, a 
repudiation of its obligations, unless some settlement can be arrived at 
upon terms at least possible, though difficult of endurance, I would earnestly 
advise this people to accept a permanent settlement at 3 per cent., believing 
that they could, if called upon, see that the quiet and repose gained thereby 
would counterbalance the hardships of an increase which they are so little 
able to bear. I would use my best endeavors to secure a vote of the people 
sanctioning a settlement at 3 per cent, for forty-five years on tlie basis of 
$32,977,(190.02. And this settlement being ratified, I would enforce it by 
tne Legislature and courts, whose powers I believe to be fully adequate 
thereto. I would do so because I believe it to be right, because I believe 
it is the only way to avoid consequences we would all regret deeply, because 
I believe it is to the best interest of the bondholders and the tax-jDayer, 
and because I believe it is a duty we owe to the Commonwealth of Vii'- 
ginia." 

Mr. Brown. If that be the correct extract from the speech of the senator 
from Virginia at Mozart Hall, he stood then for the payment of a debt of f 32,- 
000,000 and over, with 3 per cent, interest. He was not then a readjuster, and 
possibly his position on that subject since may be as inconsistent as some of my 
inconsistencies to which he has referred, and in that connection let me i"efer 
to one or two other of his charges. 

He says I accepted tiie position of chief justice of my State from a carpet- 
bag governor. While I was acting with the Republican party I did accept 
the position of chief justice of my State from the governor and senate of 
Georgia. The gentleuian who occupied the position of governor at the 
time it is true was a Northern man by birth, but he had been many years iu 
Georgia before the war and was president of a railroad company iu Georgia 
at the time he was elected governor, and I believe also superintendent of 
an express company. He was a business man there and not regarded as a 
carpet-bagger at the time. 

However, the senator says that I then resigned that position and accepted 
the presidency of a railroad company. That is true. 1 had a twelve years' 
term as chief justice ; I had served less than three years when my health 
began to fail on account of the labor and close confinement, and I did resign 
the high position I held and took charge of a railroad as president. But 
the history of the railroad of which I am president and that of the one of 
which the senator from Virginia has been president are a little different. 
The one I took charge of has beeu a financial success; I have taken care of 
the interest of its stockholders ; I have made the stock good to them ; I have 
paid its bonds and coupons promptly as they fell due, and it is doing well 
to-day. The railroad of which the honorable senator from Virginia was 
president I think has not so well served the interest of the stockholders, or 
even of all the bondholders, as it has gone into bankruptcy and had to be 
sold out for its debts. That is the difference between the senator from Vir- 
ginia and myself on the railroad question. [Laughter.] 

The senator turned a period or two upon the subject of bargains, and 
seemed a little in fear of competition in that line. But I beg to assure him 
that he has no reason to apprehend danger on that subject. Neither I nor 



APPENDIX. 635 

any other senator is likely at any time to be his competitor when there is 
occasion for bargain and sale. He went out of his way to state that there 
was dissatisfaction with my appointment to the senate at the time it was 
made by Governor Colquitt, of Georgia, and gave by indirection his sanc- 
tion to a groundless charge that there was some sort of an improper under- 
standing between me, Governor Colquitt, and General Gordon on that 
subject. Our enemies fabricated a well-known falsehood, alleging that 
there was an improper understanding between us. We each stamped it as 
a falsehood and ?ent the denial with the evidence to the country. As stated 
by the senator from Virginia, there were two or three indignation meetings 
held in Georgia, gotten up by a few of our enemies, to denounce Governor 
Colquitt on account of my appointment. The people of Georgia were indig- 
nant at the injustice done by those meetings. We both appealed to the 
people, Governor Colquitt as a candidate for governor, and I as a candidate 
for United States senator. There is no allegation in any quarter that any- 
body was prevented from voting. Ko one pretends to deny that there was 
a free vote and a fair count. Every qualified voter in the State who de- 
sired to do so came to the polls. My position was fully defined. I announced 
myself in favor, as I have been for years, of the strictest conformity to the 
reconstruction measures, in the utmost good faith, and of scrupulous fidelity 
in the execution of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to 
the Constitution of the United States with the protection of every legal right 
of every citizen. What was the result? Governor Colquitt was re-elected 
as the executive of our State by a majority of 55,0' 0, and I was elected to 
this senate by over two-thirds of the representatives of the people. The 
gentleman is welcome to all he can make out of that charge. There was 
no sailing under false colors. I ran as a Democrat upon this liberal, progres- 
sive line ; I was elected as a Democrat upon that line, and I expect in good 
faith to so continue. 

But, Mr. President, the senator from Virginia was very indignant yester- 
day ; he was hurling back at everybody on this side of the House the state- 
ment that there had been any bargain or contract between him and the 
Republicans. I have not asserted it. I did say the other day in debate 
that the air was full of rumors of that character. I think no gentleman 
who walks the streets of the city of W^ashington or reads the newspapers of 
the Union to-day will doubt that that statement was correct. Not only is 
the air full of rumors, but it is on every tongue that there has been a con- 
tract of that sort. I have not said it was true, but I take it the statement 
I made and the obstructions that I threw in the way of carrying out the 
contract, if it exists, must have had some effect. I think, in a word, I did 
hit cock sparrow, for it is said the feathers flew, and it seems that the ball 
has left a little sore. 

But first the senator palliates his position on repudiation by saying that 
other States have been guilty of repudiation. Well, other Southern States 
have thrown off: certain burdens that were put upon them during the recon- 
struction period by carpet-baggers, as they think, or by the reconstruction 
Legislatures, where those in power thought the debt was not an honest one. 
But Virginia can plead no such palliation. I do not understand that her 
debt was increased to any considerable extent during the reconstruction 
period. Her debt is the old debt of Virginia, for which she received value 
dollar for dollar. She got it in the building of railroads, her various inter- 
nal improvements, etc. She made the debt when there was no question 
about the consideration, and it would seem that she is less justifiable in re- 
pudiating a portion of it than other Southern States would be in repudiating 
a portion of the reconstruction debt where they got no just consideration for it. 



636 APPENDIX. 

So much for repudiation in Virginia. 

The senator says there has been no contract between him and the Repub- 
licans. I do not afBnn that there has been, but I reiterate what I have said 
before, the air is full of rumors to that effect, and I believe to-day that a 
very large majority of the American people are of the opinion, whether 
truly or not, that there has been such a contract. Well, going on the supposi- 
tion that it exists, let us see what are the evidences of it. A strong chain of 
circumstances, connecting well with each other, is the most conclusive kind 
of proof. Many a man has been convicted of high crime upon circumstan- 
tial evidence, and justly convicted. Without any assertion as to whether 
there has been a contract or not, let me refer to some of the proofs that 
seem to establish that fact. 

In the first place the senator from Virginia was a Democrat, a true Dem- 
ocrat, as he always convinced his people up to the time, as I have already 
stated, of his defeat for governor by the Democratic convention. After that 
it is true he commenced finding fault; and although he took position for 
paying $32,000,000 of debt at 3 percent., he afterward changed that, because 
it was necessary to make a stronger point against the Democrats of Virginia, 
and he took a position for readjusting that amount and for reducing it in 
round numbers $12,000,000. The first was to be a readjustment wiih the con- 
sent of the creditors, taking off one-third, as I understand, for West Vir- 
ginia. The last readjustment, if I understand the question, was $12,000,000 
more to be stricken off absolutely without consulting the creditors, or with- 
out their consent. The Republicans formerly called that repudiation. In 
fact, in my own State to-day, though she does not owe $12,000,000, if she 
were to strike off $10,000,000 at one stroke of the pen without consulting 
the creditors, I presume the Republican presses of the North and of the South 
would say that Georgia had repudiated that much. We might call it read- 
justment ; but they would still insist that it was repudiation. 

But I have never understood yet that the Republican party approved of 
the repudiation by the other Southern States of the debt contracted during 
the reconstruction period for which no consideration was paid. No ; I think 
the Republican party has stood par excellence as a party of debt-payers. 
They have held that all debts ought to be paid everywhere ; and it does 
seem the spectacle is a little novel when they take up a repudiationist and 
a Democrat as their candidate for an important ofiice in the senate. People 
will naturally say this needs explanation. 

But let us go along with this case. When the honorable senator from 
Virginia came to Washington nobody here knew, at least the public did not 
know, what position he was going to occupy. He had always claimed to be 
a Democrat in his State up to 1877, and though he had separated from the 
organization .after that time and established a readjusting party, yet when 
the two candidates for president were put into the field last summer, and 
he had, as we thought generally we had, good reason to believe that General 
Hancock would be elected, and would have the distribution of the patron- 
age, he rallied under the Hancock banner, and his man Riddleberger stood 
with him. Yes, they were the very essence of Democracy ; they were the 
the leaders, as they claimed, of the Democracy of the Old Dominion. 

And it is said — 1 do not know that fact — that com.munications between 
those leaders of the Virginia Democracy, General Mahone, Mr. Riddleber- 
ger, and others, were kept up with the Democratic executive committee, 
and even with General Hancock, holding out the idea that they were the 
true Democracy and could carry Virginia for him. But we cannot always 
tell what the tide of fortune will do. It turned the other way this time, 
and contrary to our hopes and expectations the Republican candidate was 



APPENDIX. 637 

elected. Then the senator from Virginia was silent on his Democracy until 
he came here ; no one seemed to be able to locate him. After he got here, the 
air was full of rumors that there were conferences going on all the time 
between him and certain Republican leaders, and it was said on all sides 
again and again — I cannot say with what justice — that Mr. Gorhani, who is 
now nominated for secretary of this body, was in very constant communi- 
cation with him ; that they were good frieudt*, so much so that some of the 
newspai)ers have even said that Mr. Gorham was his political wet-nurse. 
[Laughter.] I do not know anything about whether that is true, but it is 
evident they were great friends, as everybody admits. 

Negotiations or interchange of visits, or whatever they might have been, 
went on between him and various parties until there was a Republican 
caucus. The same rumor is that while the Republican senators were meet- 
ing in one room caucusing the honorable senator from Virginia was in another 
room in this building, and that there was frequent connnunication between 
them, a going back and forth, consultation, as it seemed to be understood. 
What was the result? The result was that Mr. Gorham, this special friend 
of the senator from Virginia, was nominated for secretary of the senate. 
And who is Mr. Gorham? I understand he was once secretary of the sen- 
ate and an ardent Republican. Since that time, if the newspapers are to 
be credited, he went to his State, California, bolted the Republican organi- 
zation, supported Dr. Glenn, the Democratic candidate for governor, and 
was in efcct read out of the Republican party there. Still he was the 
intimate friend of the senator from Virginia, and when the caucus ad- 
journed it soon came to light that he had been taken up by the Republicans 
again, rebaptized again into the faith I presume, and nommated as their 
choice above all men for secretary of this senate. 

Again, Mr. Riddleberger — and I presume he is a very clever gentleman — 
who had been a Democrat all the time, as I understand, in Virginia, and in 
the late contest, though a readjuster, was not only a Hancock man, but one 
ot the electors for the State at large for Hancock and English, who worked 
and did all he could to defeat your candidates. He was the right-hand man 
of the senator from Virginia; and when the caucus adjourned it soon came 
to light that by some marvellous sort of change — I do not know how; a 
sort of hocus-pocus — he had become one of the leading Republicans of the 
United States, transformed in a very short time, and he had been selected 
in preference to all living men, out of about four and a half millions of Re- 
publicans in the United States. Yes, Mr. Riddleberger had been agreed on 
by the senatorial caucus of the Republican party and presented as the 
Republican candidate for the sergeant-at-arms of this senate. 

1 say a man has a right to change his opinions. I have exercised that 
right in the past, I admit. I may do it again in the future, whenever I 
think 1 ought to do it. A man is a Bourbon who never changes ; but it is 
not usual, I must say, for a new convert who has just now changed over to 
be so much favored by the party with whom he has just united. I do not 
know for what distinguished services, but for some good reason, no doubt, 
Mr. Riddleberger, of Virginia, this life-long Democrat, this Hancock elector 
for the State at large, is chosen by the senatorial caucus of the Republican 
party as their first choice for the position of sergeant-at-arms. 

It may be I have been a little too fast ; that I have got a little ahead. I 
have shown the result of the Republican caucus possibly without showing 
the consideration, as I am now proving the bargain. Before that time there 
was an election here for the committees of the senate. We being in power 
on this side had attempted to organize those committees. You on that side 
had filibustered for nearly two weeks, because you were not ready, and we 



638 APPENDIX. 

could not go on with the regular business of the senate. When you reached 
the time, however, that you filled all your Republican vacancies and the 
senator from Virginia [Mr. Mahone] had come fully into your embrace, you 
were then ready, and you went forward with the organization of the com- 
mittees. As committees were necessary, we offered no dilatory resistance. 

Mr. Conkling. Will the senator allow me to inquire one moment — 

Mr. Brown. No, sir, I will not permit any interruption. 

Mr. Conkling. I will accept that if the senator wishes it to stand there. 
I was about to ask him to correct a statement of his own, but if he does not 
wish to be corrected I certainly shall not interrupt him. 

Mr. Brown. If I have made any misstatement, I, of course, yield. 

Mr. Conkling. I thiuk the honorable senator made a grave misstatement, 
and I feel quite sure an inadvertent one. 

Mr. Brown. I yield with great pleasure if for the purpose of correcting a 
misstatement. 

Mr. Conkling. I understood the senator to assert that this side of the 
chamber for two weeks had filibustered. 

Mr. Brown. I said for nearly two weeks. 

Mr. Conkling. The senator is equally inexact. I rose to remind the hon- 
orable senator that without any motion on the other side to take up the 
resolution to which he refers, organizing the senate, a good many days 
elapsed, and that it was not until the week when the seats became full that 
delays were suggested on this side ; so that instead of its being a delay for 
two weeks or nearly two weeks it was for less than one week. I think the 
senator would hardly, upon his attention being called to it, like to make so 
broad and I think so unjust a statement. 

Mr. Brown. Whether I am right or the senator is right as to the exact 
time the Record will show. Of course I have no disposition to misstate 
the case. 

Mr. Conkling. So I supposed. 

Mr. Brown. The senator from New York, however, will not deny that 
there was filibustering on his side to prevent the election of the committees. 
I may be in error about the length of time. 

Mr. Conkling. If the senator will not feel it an imputation, I will with 
great respect to him deny that there was filibustering, and I will affirm that 
in place of there being filibustering there was some earnestness of protest 
on tins side against proceeding at a day so late as it had then come to be, 
when senators who had been elected to vacant chairs were some of them 
already on their way to this capitol; but I think that protest and that 
remonstrance fell very far short of what I understand to be filibustering ; so 
that without meaning to do it offensively to the senator at all, I do respect- 
fully deny that there was filibustering. 

Mr. Brown. The senator from New York calls the same thing by a differ- 
ent name, and I am willing for him to have his own opinion about it. It is 
very evident that motions to adjourn and motions to go into executive ses- 
sion alternately were made here by the senator from Pennsylvania from day 
to day. We call it filibustering; we did at the time. I believe that is what 
jrou call it now when we interpose such objections. Therefore, I still say 
that, according to my interpretation of that sort of conduct, it was filibus- 
tering. It was delay ; it was fighting for time to get the power to carry out 
the purpose. You would, I suppose, call it filibustering when done by the 
Democrats, and an effort to secure delay when done by the Republicans. 
We call the same thing by the same name in both cases. 

But I will proceed with my narrative. I am going on with the evidence of 
this contract, and I do not care to be interrupted unless I should inadvert- 



APPENDIX. 639 

ently make some error in my statement. We heard the senator from Vir- 
ginia yesterday three hours, and nobody interrupted liim once. 

Mr. Conkling. I beg the honorable senator's pardon. 

Mr. Brown. Not at all. 

Mr. Conkling. The senator from Georgia is speaking extemporaneously, 
and as he is a very practical debater it never occurred to me that it would 
be a serious inconvenience to him to have his attention called to an inad- 
vertent inaccuracy of statement. 

Mr. Brown. It has not been by any means. The senator and T only differ 
about the accuracy of the statement as it is a question of time. I may have 
said that it went on for a little longer than was the case. The Record may 
show that I am right, or it may show tliat the senator is right on that par- 
ticular point. He is entitled to his opinion and his recollection of that, and 
so am I. That point is not at all important in this instance. 

We did reach a time when we came to a vote on the question of the organi- 
zation of the committees of the senate. There were thirty-seven Democrats 
and thirty-seven Republicans in this chamber. The vice-president is a 
Republican. The senator from Virginia had always been a Democrat up to 
the end of the Hancock and Garfield campaign, if we may judge him by his 
conduct and profession during that campaign. Coming here trom that sort 
of field, with that kind of precedent and course of conduct, with those ante- 
cedents, he left the Democratic party and voted with the Republicans for 
the organization of every committee just as they proposed to organize the 
committees. Every vote that he has cast in this chamber since that time 
has been on the same line. He has never voted with the Democracy a 
single time. 

iS'ow, when we take into the account the two things and put them together, 
it is a, peculiar coincidence, to say the least of it, that the senator Irom Vir- 
ginia, always a Democrat up to a very late period, should vote with the 
Republicans on the organization of every committee, and that he should con- 
tinue to vote with them on every issue since that time ; and then in a vei-y 
short time afterward, that they should meet in caucus and nominate his inti- 
mate friend Gorham, who had bolted their party a year or two ago and been 
read out, and Riddleberger, who had always been a Democrat, a Hancock 
elector, who was his bosom friend and his right-hand man, and should put 
them forward here as the Republican candidates, — I say, there is a very 
peculiar coincidence about it, to say the least. It may have been no bargain; 
it may not have been even a capital undi'rstanding; but I will call it a coin- 
cidence. It is just one of those things that happen sometimes in life, I sup- 
pose ; but there is something about it peculiar that it should happen under 
such circumstances. 

But there is another point about it which is a little peculiar. It has not 
been the habit of the senate to reorganize the officers of the senate at an 
executive session. There was one exception to that rule in 1853, when, the 
tradition says, there was a man in one of the positions who did not give 
satisfaction, who was not considered worthy, and they took the matter up at 
that executive session and went into a reorganization, dismissed him, and 
put another man in his place belonging to the same party, and re-elected all 
of the other officers. Therefore, according to the precedents, it is not usual 
at this time to reorganize the officers of the senate. It is usual to wait until 
the business session of the two houses. But after the peculiar coincidence 
that I have spoken of it seems to become essentially necessary in this case — 
supremely important — that we should reorganize the officers of the senate 
now and elect these two special friends of the senator from Virginia. 

True, as I stated the other day, there are very important nominations 



640 APPENDIX. 

before us that it is the custom of the senate to act on at this time. We are 
called together by the president of the United States tor that very purpose. 
That is what we are here for. There is a vacancy upon the supreme bench 
of the United States, and I am informed that court adjourned to-day for 
want of a quorum. There is a vacancy, as I have slated heretofore, in the 
court of claims. There is a vacancy in the position of the circuit judge of 
the fifth judicial circuit, where in my own town the term is running and the 
judge ought to be there. The district judge is sick, and not able to attend 
to the duties. A judge from another State is there to do district judge's 
duty, and the United States circuit judge is needed there to hold his court. 
Public ministers and other important oflBcers have been nominated, and it is 
our duty to act upon the nominations. But these matters are insignificant 
compared with the overwhelming importance of electing a secretary of the 
senate and a sergeant-at-arms who are the busoui friends and right-hand 
men of the senator fiom Virginia. These other matters that I speak of may 
be important qut'Stions, but they sink into insignificance compared with the 
great importance of electing these officers here contrary to general usage. 
That is another coincidence in this matter — another peculiarity about it. 

Again I ask, why in the first place should these two men have been 
selected by the Republican caucus over everybody else under these peculiar 
circumstances; and then why should this stubborn fight be made for their 
ratification over all the other important nominations before us, and over the 
importance of three or four treaties with foreign powers? There is another 
coincidence that is a little peculiar ; it happens so, I suppose ; still the 
people of the United States will naturally inquire why these things are so. 
Why is it so? The people of the United States are an inquisitive people; 
they will look into this sort of thing. We have an energetic press; they are 
always inquiring; and now these coincidences that are denied to be a con- 
tract have been taken up by them, and all around they say it was a contract, 
and some of them even say it was a corrupt bargain. I have not said so, but 
I see it in the papers. 

I presume it is these peculiar coincidences that cause people to think there 
was a bargain and sale here. There is one point about it, however, if it is 
a bargain, (and all these facts and circumstances look very much that way,) 
we do not on tliis side of the house intend to be parties to it. If there has 
been a bargain and sale here, and the contract has been carried out on one 
side, we will not help to deliver the goods to the other side. We will stay 
here a long time first. 

We have just reasons for remaining here to prevent the turning out of 
good officers of the senate (when you have half of them and we half) in 
violation of the general usage ; but we have still higtier reasons, yes, infi- 
nitely higher, for preventing the consummation of what looks to the country 
to be, what the people of the United States believe to be, a contract for the 
election of these men on account of a consideration received by the other 
side. If there has been such an arrangement, whether it is to be dignified 
by the term contract or not, then I believe we reflect the popular will when 
we stay here and say we will never be a party to it nor see it consummated 
while we have power to prevent it. I believe we are right when we stay 
here, and call the attention of the American people to this extraordinary 
coincidence. 

All this may be, as I have said, mere happen-so, but it does not look right. 
There is something about it that I do not fancy. It reminds me of a story 
that it may not be quite proper to relate here, of a 'coon and a polecat, 
sometimes called the skunk. It is said that a 'coon left his house one day 
and went in quest of food. On his return he found some other animal down 



APPENDIX. 641 

in the hollow of the tree where his home was. He thought it was a cat, and 
challenged it by saying, "A cat? " " No," said the polecat ; " I am a 'coon." 
Said the 'coon, "You don't look like a 'coon." He replied, "Bat I am a 
'coon." Said the 'coon, "You don't talk like a 'coon." He repeated, " But 
I am a 'coon." "Ugh," said the 'coon, "you don't smell like a 'coon, and 
you are not a 'coon." [Laughter.] This transaction does not look like it 
was a proper transaction, and it does not smell like a clean transaction, and 
we do not intend to be a party to it. We will do all iu our power to prevent 
its consummation. 

It may be that all this ado about it is without foundation, but I think if 
this matter were put on trial before a jury of the country and the issue was 
whether the contract could be established, we might apply to it the usual 
rules of evidence for practice and have no hesitation in going before a Jury 
and claiming a verdict. I am not sure that we could not go further. 1 am 
not very fresh from my reading of Blackstone, Starkie, and some of the older 
authorities, but if I recollect, I think it is iu Starkie on Evidence, probably 
in reference to criminal cases, the rule is laid down that tlie evidence must 
not only be consistent with the hypothesis of the guilt of the prisoner, but 
inconsistent with every other reasonable hypothesis. I think the evidence 
here is not only consistent with the hypothesis of a contract, but it seems to 
my mind to be inconsistent with every other reasonable hypothesis. There- 
fore, applying the rules in a criminal case to it, I think we should convict 
the defendants, the parties to the contract. 

I thmk I can see iu the sedate manner and grave appearance of some of 
my friends on the other side of this chamber that they feel they are a little 
ill the condition of the man who caught the wolf. After scuffling with it a 
good while he called upon his friends to come and help him let it loose. Or 
it may be that you are a little nearer the condition of the mau who won the 
elephant at a raffle. He got him, but he did not know what to do with him, 
and he was in great trepidation about it. You have won the elephant in 
this case, and it seems to me you are not in very good condition to get rid 
of him, for if you do not stand by his friends and elect them to office he may 
turn upon you and rend every chairman of you, and turn you all off from 
the heads of the committees. 

Possibly I am wrong about that. It may be that you are in the better 
condition of the astronomer who looked through his telescope at the moon, 
and after gazing at it for a time he told his friends that he saw a large ele- 
phant upon the surface of the moon. His friends said, "That is impossible." 
The astronomer looked again. "Yes," said he, "there is a large elephant 
on the surface of the moon ; I not only see it, but I saw it move just that 
minute." His friends gathered around him then and there was great excite- 
ment, and it was a very great problem how it could have come there or why 
it had never been seen before. At length some one looking carefully found 
that there was a mouse between the lenses of the instrument, and it turned 
out that instead of having found an elephant on the surface of the moon, the 
astronomer had a I'nouse in his telescope. [Laughter.] I think it is possible 
that my friends on the other side have not the elephant they think they have 
caught. I believe they could let him loose, and possibly in the end it would 
turn out instead of a huge elephant to be the diminutive form of a little 
mouse. 

I know the condition may be somewhat embarrassing, and I do not wish 
to see our friends on the other side embarrassed. But this peculiar coin- 
cidence, this strange state of things that has con.e along here, that nobody 
can account for, that made our friends over there the chairmen of the differ- 
ent committees that are generally given to the majority, that gave them the 
41 



642 APPENDIX. 

control of the committees and business of the senate, that gave the senator 
from Virginia tlie chairmanship of the committee he desired, that put him 
on several other important committees, that was followed by the nomination 
of his friends, one of them a Democrat, for these offices — I eay this strange 
coincidence may be and doubtless is somewhat embarrassing, and 1 sympa- 
thize with our friends in their embarrassment, but I must still reiterate that 
we cannot afford to make ourselves parties to it, and while we dislike to sub- 
mit to the personal inconvenience of remaining here, or to subject those on 
the other side to that inconvenience, we feel it is our duty to stay here what- 
ever time may be necessary to prevent the consummation of what the public 
believe to be a bargain and sale, or at least to prevent the election of thepe 
caucus candidates who have been nominated under this strange coincidence. 

Speech of Honorable Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, delivered in 
THE Senate op the United States, April 14, IbSl, on a Free 
Ballot and a Fair Count. Colored citizens in the South have 
greater freedom of ballot than a large class of white citi- 
zens IN New England have. The effort of thk Republicans 
to reconstruct and radicalize the South discussed. Indepen- 
dent Democrats of the South, supporting indkpendent candi- 
dates BECAUSE THEY WKRE NOT CONTENT WITH THE CAUCUS SYSTEM 
AS PRACTICED, DID NOT START TO FOLLOW INDEPENDENT LEADERS IN- 
TO THE Republican camp, and would not do so if invited. 
Rights of the colored citizens discussed. Thk Rkpublican 
party has done .justice neither to them nor to the white 
Republicans of the South. Some interesting figures. 

The Senate having under consideration the resolutions submitted by Mr. Dawes in 
relation to the election of officers of the Senate — 

Mr, Brown said: 

Mr. President: At the end of what was known or must now be classed 
as the war of the rebellion because it was unsuccessful, the Government of 
the United States was in the hands and under the control of the Republican 
party, and I admit they had very ditRcult problems to deal with in reorgan- 
izing the machinery of government and putting it into operation again. 
Whether they dealt wisely or unwisely has been a question for the people to 
determine and is yet a question of debate. They thought proper to pass 
what were termed the reconstruction bills into laws. Those acts disfran- 
chised and drove from the ballot-box, in the elections for the conventions 
that were to form constitutions for the Southern people to live under, proba- 
bly .two hundred thousand of the most intelligent, cultivated, and educated 
people of the South, including all persons who had ever taken an oath in any 
office to support the Constitution of the United States and had afterward in 
any way whatever aided the war of the rebellion. I fell in that class, and I 
stood by and saw my negroes, or those that had been mine, vote in the elec- 
tion for members of the convention who were to form a constitution under 
which I was to live while I was excluded from the polls. There may have 
been— I do not say there was not — " a fair count " then, but there was not a 
very "free ballot." It was free, however, to all the males of the colored race 
who were twenty-one years of age and upward. They all had the right to 
come to the ballot-box and exercise the suffrage ; I think they were generally 
there. 

At a subsequent period, however, the grave question arose as to whether 
these mere acts of Congress were enough on this subject, and it was found 



APPENDIX. 643 

by the Republican party that it was necessary to propose a constitutional 
amendment that would guaranty to all persons, without regard to race, color, 
or previous condition of servitude, equal rights at the ballot-box. 

These measures were regarded very hard measures by the people of the 
South. I thought so ; but having taken part in what is to be termed the re- 
bellion, I recognized the Government of the United States as my conqueror, 
and when these terms were dictated I acquiesced in them and advised my 
people to do so, and I think they committed an error — but there is a dilfer- 
ence of opinion about that — in not promptly accepting those terms. I think 
the mistake we made when you put the suffrage into the hands of the colored 
race was that we indicated displeasure at it. The colored people were our 
friends, and we were their friends; but when our people — and it was the 
most natural thing on earth that they should have taken the course under all 
the circumstances — thought proper to make an issue on this question ; and 
the carpet-bagger — and by that term I do not mean the Northern man who 
came South for any honest purpose, but the man who could not have been 
elected constable in Massachusetts or Ohio, who came down to the South 
simply for the purpose of taking charge of the colored people and securing 
their support for the promotion of his ambition or his interest — when the car- 
pet-bagger took our former slaves into the out-houses or school-houses at 
night and swore them into the Union Leagues, they were taught to believe 
that on that question our people were not their friends ; and it was probably 
very natural that they followed this class of Northern men who said to them, 
" The Government of the United States has given you the right of suffrage 
and we are here to see that you have it." 

At that day I took position for absolute acquiescence in the reconstruction 
measures, and in the dictation of my conqueror. I said the terms were hard, 
but I believed it was better to accept them promptly ; I recognized your 
power to dictate them, and I thereupon, after the passage of the fifteenth 
amendment, took position for " a free ballot and a fair count " in Georgia 
and all over the South, and I have stood there from that day to th'S, and I 
stood there at a time when, to say the least, it was a matter of some incon- 
venience to a man to stand there. 

My friend on my left a'iks, where did the senator from Virginia stand? I 
understand him to ask where did the now Republican senator from Virginia 
then stand ? I do not know. I was noticing Georgia matters then more 
than Virginia matters; but I had always been under the impression that he 
stood with the Democracy at the time when I temporarily separated myself 
from them upon that issue, and that he then voted with those opposed to the 
reconstruction measures. 

Times have changed. The past year I entered the senate under an ex- 
ecutive appointment. There were those in Georgia to whom that appoint- 
ment was very distasteful and, as I stated the other day, there were popular 
demonstrations in two or three counties against the governor of the State 
fer having tendered me that appointment. The governor appealed to the 
people upon that issue, and I appealed to them al>o, and announced myself 
a candidate for election to the Senate of the United States. What was the 
result? Two Democrats ran for the office of governor; both planted them- 
selves fairly and squarely on the line of "a free ballot and a fair count," and 
I think I may say with perfect propriety that at no time in any State in this 
Union has there been a fairer election or a fairer count. No one has com- 
plained, so far as I have heard, of either party, that anybody was excluded 
from the polls who had a right to come there, or that there was coercion, or 
that there was any unfairness of any character. Members of the Legislature 



644 APPENDIX, 

were elected in the same manner ; and when the Legislature met, standing 
as I did before them as a Democratic candidate for the United States senate, 
I received a majority of more than two-thiids of the Legislature; every Re- 
publican in the body and nearly two-thirds of the Democratic members voted 
for me. 

Then I affirm in the senate chamber ta-day that the Democracy of Georgia 
stand fairly and squarely upon the doctrine of " a free ballot and a fair 
count," and that they practice it. My colleague has aimounced the same 
doctrine. There is no division among us on that question, and it is not 
probable that there can ever again be such a division. All that is said in 
reference to any unfairness in elections there, or any disposition on the part 
of the Democracy of that State to drive from the ballot-box any one entitled 
to vote, is gratuitous and unfounded. 

The honorable senator from Connecticut [Mr. Hawley], in his very able 
and eloquent speech, the other day, on the Republican side of this chamber, 
said : 

"The South, the solid South, declares that the fifteenth amendment is a 
failure, that it cannot be executed in letter and spirit." 

I deny it. With all due respect to my honorable friend I say the South, 
the solid South, occupies no such ground, and takes no such position. There 
is no place on the face of the earth to-day in any civilized government where 
there is a freer ballot; and there is no question about it that the tifteenth 
amendment is acknowledged to be binding, and in practice that it is faith- 
fully carried out. 

The same honorable senator said : 

"I come back to the great tact which you, sir, and T, and every man in 
this land must accept, and may as well make up his mind this hour to ac- 
cept, now and hereafter, that universal suffrage is the law of the world of late, 
and is the irreversible law of this Republic to-day." 

1 deny that, too. Universal suffrage is not the law of the world at present, 
and never was, nor is it the law of any civilized government in the world. 
Universal suffrage is not the law of this Republic to day, and never has been. 
1 admit it is manhood suffrage in most of the Southern States, and each 
male citizen, twenty-one years of age, without regard to race, color, or pre- 
vious condition of servitude, may go to the polls and vote ; but it is not the 
law of Connecticut; it is not the law of Massachusetts, and it is not the law 
of Rhode Island. 

Senators from those States have said and said properly, that the States 
have a right for themselves to regulate this question. That they have a 
right to say what restrictions or qualifications shall be put upon suffrage, I 
admit; and much as State rights may have trailed in the dust, and much as 
they may have been overridden and downtrodden, I am glad to see Massa- 
chusetts and the other New England States come up and take the lead in the 
affirmance of that doctrine. I desire to do no injustice to your States. As 
1 have already said on this floor, I aduiire your industry, I admire your, 
thrift, I admire your enterprise, I especially admire your educational sys- 
tems, your colleges, your universities, all that you have done for the civiliza- 
tion of the country and of the age in which we live. I admit that you are 
a great people, and that you are a powerful people ; but while that is true, 
and >ou have ample time to attend to your own business and do it well, I 
think you appropriate a little too much of your time in attention to otlmr 
people's business. Now if you would only be content that other peoj le of 
other States exercise the same privileges and rights that you claim for your- 
selves on that subject, to regulate this question for themselves, and if you 
would be content for us to carry out an important principle of the coustitu- 



APPENDIX. 645 

tion of Massachusetts — I do not say whether a wise one or not — probably we 
should all get along better. In the constitution of Massachusetts I find this 
language : 

" Wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue diffused generally among the 
body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and 
liberties; and as thei^e depend on spreading the opportunities and advan- 
tages of education, in the various parts of the country, and among the dif- 
ferent orders of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislatures and 
magistrates in all future periods of this Commonwealth to cherish the in- 
terests of literature, and the sciences. an(J all seminaries of learning, etc. — 
Con^tii.ution of AIas-<achuset(s, chapter 5." 

Heie you lay down the doctrine that wisdom, knowledge, and virtue dif- 
fused generally among the body of the people are necessary to the rights and 
liberties of the people. If you had permitted us to apply that rule in the 
South, we should have had less difficulty. You have put upon us by your 
legislation an immense mass of ignorant voters. They have not wisdom, 
they have not knowledge, some oF them even have no virtue, as is the case 
in every community. These are not diifused among them; from the very 
nature of the case it cannot be; and yet how anxiously you guard their 
rights to go to the polls to make laws for us and to regulate our affairs. You 
have, it may be wisely or unwisely, excluded them from the polls in your 
States. They must have something of this wisdom, something of this 
knowledge, something of this virtue there, before you permit them to go to 
your polls. Why ? Because I presume you are not willing to trust your 
rights, your liberties, your property, all that is dear to you, the very organ- 
ization of society itself, in the hands of the more ignorant and less virtuous 
part of your people. And in order to protect yourselves there and protect 
your property, what have you been compelled to do? You have in carrying 
out that very idea I admit — I wish to do you no injustice — placed a wall of 
constitutional steel between the men who would exercise manhood suffrage 
in Georgia and excluded and driven them from the ballot-box. Your con- 
stitution says that no male citizen shall vote until he can read your constitu- 
tion in the English language and write his name. Your constitution and 
your laws fuither say — I do not remember whether that; is a constitutional 
or statutory provision, and I will not misrepresent it — that he must have re- 
sided twelve months in your State, if he is a citizen coming in from another 
State, before he can vote ; he must have paid a tax assessed against him 
within the last two years, and he must be neither a pauper nor under 
guardianship. 

Now, what is a pauper in your State ? I have not found the direct defini- 
tion, because I may not be as familiar with your laws as I ought to be with 
our own, but I have found a description of a pauper, as I suppose, correctly, 
where it is provided who may enter an almshouse, and I there find this 
designation : 

" Paupers in Massachusetts are poor and indigent persons who are main- 
tained by or receive alms from city or town ; who, bnng able of body to work, 
and not having estate or means otherwise to maintain themselves, refuse or 
neglect to work ; who live a dissolute, vagrant life, and exercise no ordinary 
calling or lawful business; who spend their time and property in public houses, 
to the neglect of their proper business ; or who, by otherwise misspending 
what they earn, to the impoverishment of themselves and families, are likely 
to become chargeoble to the city, etc." 

Mr. Hoar. Mr. President — 

Mr. Brown. I will permit a reply after I am through ; but I prefer not to 
be interrupted. 



646 APPENDIX. 

Mr. Hoar. Mr. President — 

Mr. Browij. I decline to yield. If I misstate any matter connected with 
Massachusetts the senator will have a fair opportunity to correct me when 
he gets the floor. I do not state that this is the definition of a pauper; I 
only find that to get into the Mass-achusetts almshoui-e — and that is where 
a pauper generally goes — these seem to be the qualifications. But at least 
tliere is a class of people there who are iinown as paupers. It will not be 
denied. Now, whether that is the correct definition of a pauper or not, cer- 
tainly all who fall within the correct definition of a pauper are excluded 
from the ballot-box. There may be many or there may be few. But they 
are an excluded class. 

Then, in reference to spendthrifts : There is a class of persons, as I un- 
derstand, in Massachusetts who are spendthrifts, as is the case in every com- 
munity unfortunately. You have a provision, probably a very wise one, 
there, for appointing guardians for those spendthrifts. The word " spend- 
thrift," as your law-books, 1 believe, say, includes every one who is liable to 
be put under guardianship on account of excessive drinking, gaming, idle- 
ness, or debauchery, and who spends his projierty in these vices. 1 suppose 
you execute your laws faithfully, and if you do, all those who indulge in 
drink to excess, or indulge in gambling to excess, or in idleness to excess, or 
in debauchery to excess, and thereby misspend their property, are under 
guardianship as spendthrifts, and they, too, are driven from the ballot-box in 
Massachusetts ; it is doubtless a good long list. There may not be many 
paupers. I may be wrong and the senators may be right, and they will cor- 
rect that if necessary when the proper time comes, in reference to the class 
of persons I have been referring to as paupers, but you certainly have some 
paupers. If you did not have them you would not make the exception in 
the statute and say they should not come to the ballot-box; you certainly 
have a class of spendthrifts that you have provided guardians for, and they 
are embraced under your statute with persons who indulge in the vices 
already stated — 

Mr. Hoar. The senator is mistaken. 

Mr. Brown. I prefer not to be interrupted now. If I have the wrong 
page, or the wrong statute, then I still plant myself on the other statute 
wh ch gives the correct definition, not being as familiar with the Massachu- 
setts laws as the Massachu>etts lawyers are. You do have a class of people 
who are spendthrifts, who are driven from the ballot box; you do have a 
class of people who are paupers, who are driven from the ballot-box — 1 do 
not say how many tliere are ; you do have a class of people who have not 
been twelve months in your State who were voters in other States before 
they come there ; you do have a class of people who if they have not paid 
then- tax are driven from the ballot-box ; you do have a class of people who 
cannot write their names and are therefore driven from the ballot-box ; you 
do have another class of people who cannot read the constitution of Massa- 
chusetts in the English language, and therefore they are driven from the 
ballot-box. There is quite a numerous list of disqualified classes. 

Now, on the principle laid down a little while ago that the people of Mas- 
sachusetts and New England, being a thrifty people, whom 1 admire very 
much, with, as already stated, «mple time to attend to their bu-iness and a 
good degree of time to attend to other people's, I incline to think that you 
have attended pretty well to your part of it in excluding classes that you 
think might be dangerous to your institutions at home from the ballot-box. 
I do not know how many there are excluded; I have to be governed by the 
statement of others on that subject, for I am not familiar with the state of 
things there. I can form an estimate, however, fiom the data at my com- 



APPENDIX. 647 

mand. I read from a speech delivered by the senator from Rhode Island [Mr. 
Anthony] during the last session of Congress, who is apt to be very accurate, I 
believe, and I suppose very good authority on that side of the house. He says : 

"A distinguished citizen of Massachusetts has declared that the tax and 
educational qualitications in that State disfranchised a hundred thousand of 
its inhabitants, fifty times as many as the census returns render as disquali- 
fied by the real-estate qualification in Rhode Island. This gentleman esti- 
mates that by tlie enforcement of the fourteenth amendment the represen- 
tation of Massachusetts would be reduced from eleven to eight." 

That is taken from the statement made by the senator from Rhode Island 
in this chamber during the last session of Congress. I do not know whether 
he was right or not. I have so much admiration for his character and for 
his accuracy that I will not dispute the point with him ; I will take it for 
granted that the senator from Rhode Island was right, and that he believed 
that the estimate made by this distinguished citizen of Massachusetts was 
not very far wrong, or he would not have introduced it here in his argument. 
If that be true, then there are 100,001) of the male citizens of Massachusetts 
over twenty-one years of age who are barred out by the constitutional in- 
closure that you have put around your ballot box, and cannot go to it; they 
cannot approach its sacred precincts. But the number may not be 100,0* 0; 
that distinguished citizen of Massachusetts may have been in error. I heard 
that question canvassed somewhat the other day when the honorable senator 
from Florida [Mr. Call] was discussing this question. I think there it came 
down to the point, if I recollect correctly, where you admitted in round 
numbers 18,000 of your citizens of foreign birth and native born who are 
excluded from the ballot-box on account of their inability to read and write 
as required by your constitution and laws. That is my recollection of it. 
Eighteen thousand is a good round number to be driven from the ballot-box. 

AH this, as I have stated, may be entirely necessary in your opinion for 
the protection of your property and your rights, and for the preservation of 
your State institutions; and I am not assailing your right on that point ; 
but I only say that there is probably no State in the Union that has so many 
qualifications on the right of suffrage, and probably none that bars so many 
of the male citizens of twenty-one years of age and upward from the polls. 
It is true, as the honorable senator from Massachu'^etts [Mr. Dawes] stated 
a few days ago, that the provision of the constitution in reference to reading 
and writing did not apply to those who were voters at the time it was 
adopted ; but that was about twenty-three years ago ; so that I suppose those 
who were then voters have in a great measure passed away, and it does apply 
to much the greater portion now. 

Just in that connection let me state another fact. You are very exacting 
about the right of the negro to vote in the South. If my State to-morrow 
were to apply the rule of suffrage that is applied in Massachusetts to the 
colored people of Georgia, we should drive more than eight tenths of the 
whole number from the polls. Take the colored citizens of Georgia to-day 
over twenty-one years of age and let them move to Massachusetts, as they 
have a right to do, because they are entitled to all the rights, privileges, and 
immunities of citizens in the several States — let them locate in Massachu- 
setts, and you drive eight tenths of them from the polls, and will not let 
them vote. Why ? Because they cannot read the constitution of your State 
in the English language, and they cannot write their names ; and therefore 
it is very well to give the negroes of the South the right of manhood suffrage 
and to insist upon it, but it will not do in Massachusetts. I do not know 
how many of the colored race there are there that are disfranchised. All 
who come within any of the exceptions I have mentioned are, however. 



648 APPENDIX. 

Bnt I say, take the Southern colored men and transfer their citizenship to 
Massachusetts, and as they have had no chance to learn to read and write, 
if they were there now, as they cannot labor for their living and learn, — 
indeed many of them are not trying to do it, — they would be driven from 
the polls there by scores and hundreds and thousands. We have but a single 
qualification witli us, and that is the tax qualification, which you have. We 
turn none away for any other cause unless they be insane persons or con- 
victed felons, and most of the Southern States do not even have that 
qualification. 

Mr. Dawes. How much is that ? 

Mr. Brown. Thereis a small number. If there were one hundred in the 
last gubernatorial election in Georgia excluded from the polls in consequence 
of the non-payment of the tax I have never heard of it, and I do not believe 
there were so many. 

There is another point I will notice, Mr. President. All this ado about 
suffraj^e has but one object: it is to try to republicanize the South by the 
use of the negro. We might as well deal plainly about the facts. Let us 
examine the negro question a little. You did not enter into the war for the 
purpose of setting the negro free. He is not indebted to any of your good 
intentions at the time you entered the struggle for his freedom. You dis- 
tinctly proclaimed to the world that that was not one of the objects even of 
making war on the Southern States. The reason given, and no doubt the 
one you meant at the time, was the preservation of the Union and the exe- 
cution of the laws. Within a day or two after the battle of Bull Run you 
saved the Border States to your cause, greatly to our regret at the time, by 
passing almost a unanimous resolution of both houses here, the purport (if 
which was that it was not your object in waging war to make conquest or to 
interfere with the institutions of the Southern States. Had you not done so, 
you could neither have carried Maryland nor Kentucky nor Missouri with 
you, and the termination of the struggle might have been different. 

Then you were not making war for the benefit of the negro. And near 
the end of the struggle, on a very noted occasion, after Mr. Lincoln as a 
necessary war measure had issued his Proclamation of Emancipation, at 
Hampton Roads conference, as recorded by Mr. Stephens in the second 
volume of his History of the War between the States, at a time when all the 
parties except Mr. Lincoln were in life — and I have never seen its correct- 
ness denied — Mr. Lincoln indicated very clearly to the Southern commis- 
sioners that wliile he would take back nothing of his proclamation, it was a 
doubtful question to be left to the courts whether anybody was set free 
except the negroes who had fallen within your lines and had taken part with 
you; in other words, whether the emancipation applied to the colored people 
within our lines. He even went so far in the kindness of his heart and the 
generosity of his nature — and probably no man ever had more of either — as 
to indicate his willingness that f 400,000,000 be paid to Southern slaveholders 
for their slaves if peace could then be restored. Mr. Seward is reported as 
liaving said at the time that he would be willing that an amount as large as 
ttie balance of the necessary expenditure in the prosecution of the war should 
be paid for the negroes. It is true the Confederate government did not 
accept those terms, nor were they tendered in an authoritative shape, bnt 
only spoken of in the conversation as terms that might be agreed upon if 
the war could then cease. But I refer to these facts to show thut the great 
object of the war, even up to the close of it, was not the emancipation of the 
negroes. It was, as Mr. Lincoln had said, the restoration of the Union and 
the execution of the laws. 

As another evidence that Mr. Stephens has not mistaken this matter, in 



APPENDIX. 649 

his place in the House of Representatives on a noted occasion, the uncover- 
ing of F. 13. Carpenter's picture, February 12, 1878, he used these remarks, 
and I have not seen tliem cliallenoied : 

" Emancipation was not the chief object of Mr. Lincoln in issuing the 
proclamation. His cliief object, the ideal to which his whole soul was 
devoted, was the preservation of the Union. Let not history confuse events. 
That proclamation, pregnant as it was with coming events, initiative as it 
was of ultimate emancipation, still originated in point of fact more from 
■what was deemed the necessities of war than from any pure humanitarian 
view of the matter. Life is all a mist, and in the dark our fortunes 
meet us." 

That has not been challenged. Therefore I take it that Mr. Lincoln, even 
near the end of the war when he was holding the Hampton Roads conference, 
did not make the emancipation a sine qua non. He had other objects in his 
mind. Providence set the colored man free and not the Government of the 
United States. You did not expect it, and we did not expect it when we 
entered into the contest; but God in his mercy and in his beui>j;n providence 
interfered and struck the shackles from the hands of the race and made 
them free, and I am glad to-day that it is so; I was not then. 

AVhat was your next step? You did not apply to the Southern States the 
rule of the Massachusetts constitution, that wisdom and knowledge and 
virtue diffused generally among the people were necessary to the pre.-^ervation 
of their rights and liberties. You did not apply the Massachusetts rule of 
suffrage to the Southern States. Instead of doing that, as already stated, in 
the election for delegates who were to form our constitutions, you disfran- 
chised the great mass of Southern intelligence, and you turned all the negro 
males of twenty-one years and upward loose to the polls. I do not say it 
was not wise for you to adopt the rule you did for your home government, 
but if it was wise in Massiachusetts, was it unwise to do it in Georgia? You 
may say that the South had been in rebellion, and that that made a diifer- 
ence. I give you all the benefit of that. Possibly you were justified to some 
extent in applying a different rule, but was it not your natural expectation, 
and should it not have been the understanding of every one, that when the 
colored race were given the ballot for their own protection, if vou saw they 
needed it for \ hat, that they should then be left to the usual rules applied to 
other citizens? 

I want to be candid and intend to be ; I admit that there were outrages 
soon after the close of the war. I only wonder there had not been more. 
Look at the situation. A proud wealthy people had entered into a contest 
in which they had been conquered and had lost probably a greater amount 
of property than almost any other people of like number ever lost in a war, 
coming out at the end of it almost destitute, with brothers, fathers, husbands, 
the cause they had been attached to, lost; everything lost Then the con- 
queror dictated terms of the character I have mentioned, taking the slaves, 
without education, and placing them over us, driving us from tlie ballot-box 
and turning them loose to it. Was it wonderful that we thought this up- 
heaval was sapping the very foundations of society? And was it wonderful, 
under these circumstances, that there should have been restlessness, that 
there should have been Ku Klux, that there should have been every effort 
to try to maintain something like society organized under the usual rules 
that apply in other States? 

But that day has passed. There were outrages, I admit it; now there is 
as free a ballot as there is in any State in this Union. It has taken yeai-s to 
reach it. There are still outrages that may occur there (not in reference to 
the ballot, however) as there may occur outrages in Massachusetts or in any 



650 APPENDIX. 

other State ; but we execute the laws there, and we are for disposing of the 
Ku Klux in any manner that is necessary to apply the remedy if they should 
raise their heads again. Only last year, near Cocliran, Georgia — the case 
went the rounds in the newspapers — not with any view to politics, as we 
understand there, but on account of some grudge that some unworthy men 
had against a very worthy, steady, clever old colored man, they put on their 
masks, and they surrounded his cabin at night with arms in their hands, 
and demanded that he deliver himself up. He had a double-barrelled gun, 
it was loaded, he was a good shot, he aimed well, and he fired both bnrrels 
and killed one at each fire ; and there tlfey lay in his yard the next morning 
with their masks on. His course was applauded by all the white people of 
Georgia, so far as I know; the newspapers commented favorably on it, and 
expressed the hope that it might always be so when desperadoes gathered 
around the home of the humblest colored or white man at night; and I hope 
such may be the fate of all who may attempt it. He was never even 
arrested ; there was nothing done with him, no legal steps were taken 
against him whatever ; I do not know that he remained in the community, 
but everybody said he did right. It may have been that he was afraid to 
remain on account of the revenge possibly of the friends of those who had 
been killed ; he probably thought it prudent to move from there, as it would 
have been in Massachusetts under similar circumstances, but his act met the 
approval of the people of Georgia. In a county of upper Georgia, on account 
of a Ku Klux outrage, three men were convicted on circumstantial evidence 
of being guilty, and sent to the penitentiary. 

Outrages have occurred in Massachusetts. I remember years ago that the 
whole country was shocked by a report that a highly cultivated man there, a 
man occupying a high position — I refer to Dr. Webster — had for a paltry 
sum, probably two or three hundred dollars, killed his fellow-man, a man of 
good standing in society, and to conceal him had even mutilated the body and 
attempted to dissolve it by lime and other chemicals. 

Mr. Dawes. And he was hung for it. 

Mr. Brown. The senator says he was hung for it. I was going to give 
you full credit for that; but T want to draw a comparison between that and 
a case that occurred in Georgia at a much later period. You executed the 
law, I grant, and you did right. Some three or four years ago, in Floyd 
county, Georgia, in which is the city of Rome, a man named Johnson, of one 
of the best families of our State, a young man, reckless and somewhat dissi- 
pated, killed a young negro boy under circumstances of very decided cruelty. 
He was put upon his trial. All the influence of family and otherwise that 
could reasonably be brought to bear was brought in his favor and able coun- 
sel defended him. The jury found him guilty. Strong appeals were made 
by stiong family influences to the governor to commute the sentence or par- 
don him. He refused and, as your man did in Massachusetts, he atoned for 
his offence on the gallows ; he was hanged by the neck until he was dead. 
Yes, you execute your criminal laws where one white man kills another. So 
do we, and we execute them where a white man kills a negro ; and so we 
should. You see, then, that our community is as orderly as yours is, we 
execute the laws as promptly and as faithfully as you do, and the ballot-box 
is as free. 

Thus much in reference to how the colored men got the ballot and as to 
the execution of the laws. I am inclined to think, and I may be wrong 
there, and I do not wish to judge wrongly, that in giving universal suffrage 
under those circumstances possibly you had a little eye to power. There may 
have been at least a thought of party power in it, that it was the best way to 
republicanize those States, that it was the best way to get control of them 



APPENDIX. 651 

for the Republican party. I do not say that was the objVct, for I have no 
right to judge harshly the motives of others. At least you gave the negroes 
the ballot under circumstances that you would not give it to them at home, 
and at a time when you did not give it to them at home. I have here another 
little sentence from the speech of Senator Anthony that I wish to read in 
this connection. Even of the great State of New York, which is so well and 
So wisely governed, this is what Senator Anthony says : 

"Many of the Northern States adhered to their discrimination against col- 
ored citizens till the results of the war compelled its abandonment, and all 
the Southern States retained or established it. In New York the proposition 
to admit colored citizens to equal rights of suffrage was submitted to a sep- 
arate vote, with the constitution of 1846, and was rejected. It was submitted 
again, in a^j amendment in 1860, and again in 1868 — " after the passage of 
the reconstruction acts, you will please bear in mind — "and was both times 
rejected. It was not adopted until 1874, when the fifteenth amendment to 
the Federal Constitution had removed the disqualification and established 
the equality of the whites and the blacks in the suffrage." 

Therefore it was not simply the love of the colored man that prompted the 
giving of the suffrage in the Southern States. Even in that great State, as 
1 say, they refused absolutely to give the colored man the ballot for years 
after it had been given in the South and they were exercising it there. 

Again, I incline to think under all the circumstances that you have not dealt 
as liberally with these colored people as you might have done. There are 
fifty million people in round numbers in the United StHtes. Of that number 
the Republican party lacks nearly 160,000 voters of being half, according to 
the Political Almanac. So, tlien, the Republican party represents a popula- 
tion of about twenty-four millions in the United States. There are six mill- 
ion five hundred and-odd thousand of the colored race, more than one-fourth, 
if they are all Republicans, of the entire Republican party of this Union. 

How many of the offices have you given them ? What have you done for 
them? The last administration did give Hon. Frederick Douglass, who is a 
man of great intelligence and power, the position of Marshal of the District 
of Columbia; but if the reports be correct, he was not invited to do all the 
honors at the White House that have generally been performed by the Mar- 
shal of the District of Columbia. And rumor says, I do not know whether 
it is true, that now he will have to give way to a white man who can attend 
to all those honors and duties. I admit there is some palliation in that, be- 
cause it has been reported that the white man is to come from that poor and 
neglected State of ()hio that never gets anything. That may be a reason for 
the change. What high positions have you given them ? Are none of them 
iiitelligent enough to fill them ? I see before me now a distinguished gentle- 
man, Mr. Bruce, who occupied with dignity, urbanity, and character, a seat 
on this floor I believe for six years. You have seven cabinet ministers. 
More than one-fourth of the whole Republican population of the United 
States, if all the colored people are to be counted as Republicans, is colored ; 
and yet there is no man among them who is considered worthy by your party 
to represent that fourth in the cabinet of seven. What high positions have 
you given them? Occasionally they have had the position of mail route 
agent, and occasionally a post-office, but what have you done for them? I 
think not a very liberal part. 

Allow me to say here that in my opinion the Democracy have learned some 
wisdom by experience. I do not adopt the term that I have heard to-day, 
" Bourbon " Democrat ; I do not know that I am one ; I am on a more liberal 
line probably than some have been. I stand by the execution of the diflerent 
Constitutional amendments, and for carrying out every right of the citizen 



652 • APPENDIX. 

in the strictest good faith ; but I think, as I have already stated, the Demo- 
crats have learned wisdom by experience, and you need not be astonished 
when they meet in grand council again as you have neglected to do justice 
to these people that they should do it. There will be no more trouble about 
a free ballot and a fair count then. If you will not do right by them we will. 
That is my opinion ; that is my advanced position. I am a Democrat on that 
line. 

Mr, Hoar. Will you do it any way ? 

Mr. Dawes, My colleague wants to know if you are going to do it any 
way? 

Mr. Brown. I said I would under any circumstances. 

Mr. Hoar. You said you would if we would not. 

Mr. Brown. I will not do it simply for a party purpose. I w^ll advocate 
it because I think it is riglit to do justice by them. That is not quite all. 
You have not been very liberal to the Republicans of the South without 
regard to race or color. There was once an eminent man. I believe, in this 
Capitol who said something about the cohesive power of public plunder. 
I do not use that phrase, however. But there is a cohesive power about ex- 
ecutive patronage that has a good deal to do with keeping a party in power 
sometimes. Your party, one hundred and fifty-odd thousand in the minor- 
ity of the popular vote in the United States, has almost the entire hundred 
thousand Federal appointments, and as you need them North, you do not 
send many of them South. You complain that you cannot build up the Repub- 
lican party there. No, and as long as you take all the offices for yourselves, and 
as long as those that you give down there are given to carpet-baggers 
or to those who have no native influence there, you will not build up 
one. 

I have taken pains to look a little into this question. I do not vouch for 
the correctness of the figures that I now use, as I did not make them myself, 
but I use them as such an approximation to accuracy as to illustrate properly 
the principle I am discussing. I directed one of my secretaries to take up 
the Official Register, the latest I had, for 1879. You will remember that 
along down in the columns of that you will see the name of the officer, from 
what State appointed, and where he was born ; and it is a little remarkable 
to see among those given to Georgia how many there are who were not born 
there, and how many there are who were never heard of there. I suppose that 
is upon the principle, however, tliat, Georgia not having much share in the 
spoils, when an applicant came here and a senator or representative found 
that the places were full from his State and this office-seeker reported from 
Georgia, he was put down there. At least I cannot, on inquiry, locate a 
good number of them as having ever been known in Georgia. But taking 
them all now as Georgians and taking my figures as approximately correct, 
which I ani satisfied they are, you have not been very liberal in bestowing 
patronage down there. If you want to rally the people and form a party 
there you ought to deal as justly by them as you do by the Republicans else- 
where. I respectfully state that I do not think you have done so. As my 
secretary has made the list, those employed in the executive department 
and in the Secretary of State's office, and I suppose connected with the work 
there, number 98, or did at the time the Official Register was published, and 
of the 98 there were 2 charged to Georgia, but neither born there. 

Mr. Dawes. One was Fitzsimons. 

Mr. Brown. That comes a little lower down. In the department of 
state there are 367 appointments; from Georgia 4, In the war depai'tment 
1,507; from Georgia 14. In the navy department 347; from Georgia 1, 
and he was born in Georgia. In the post-office department 488 ; from 



APPENDIX. 653 

Georgia 9 ; 6 of them born elsewhere. In the treasm-y department, not 
counting laborers. 10,099 appointfes; from Georgia 157; and 81 of tliem 
born elsewhere. I learn that there are about two thousand here in the 
treasury department proper, and therefore that is the better rule to apply. 
On inquiry I learn that under tlie statute, if it is construed as we think is 
the plain meaning of it, Georgia would be entitled to 60 ; and when I in- 
quired I found she had 31. In the department of agriculture there are 73; 
from Georgia 1, and he was born elsewhere. In the department of the 
interior 3,924; from Georgia 7 ; born elsewhere 5; 2 natives. In the de- 
partment of justice 321 ; from Georgia 2 ; born elsewhere 2. In the judi- 
cial department 2,008; from Georgia 51; born elsewhere 27. I suppose 
they locate Fitzsimons there. In the Government printing office 1,136 are 
employed ; from Georgia 1, and that one born elsewhere. In the govern- 
ment of the District of Columbia 472 ; from (ieorgia none. My own idea 
of it is that if you did not have these hundred thousand officers you would 
have a great deal of diffi !ulty in keeping your party together, and certainly 
a great deal of difficulty in triumphing with that party. 

Mr. Dawes. Your colleague says there are not any Republicans down 
there. VV^hat could we do ? 

Mr. Brown. You have driven them out of the field by your injustice to 
them. No, gentlemen, you have not done justice to them. If there is any- 
thing in your civil-service re'orm there ought to be a competitive examina- 
tion and a Democrat let in once in a while. I have insisted on that before 
some of the departments, but I find the first inquiry to be, " Is he a Repub- 
lican? " After that is ascertained he might have a chance at a competitive 
examination. It does not seem to apply to a colored man ; I notice here, it 
is generally a white Republican, and most of those from Northern States, 
who gets these benefits. I say you should give some of the offices to the 
Democrats; but if you will not do that, then, as the Republicans of my 
State have no representative on this floor but my colleague and myself, I 
demand justice for them, and that they receive the proportion of the official 
patronage that Georgia is justly entitled to. If you will not grant this, com- 
})lain no more of your inability to maintain the Republican party in Geor- 
gia. 

You gave the colored people the ballot to enhance your power, and you 
have not dealt generously by them since they have had the ballot. I appre- 
hend at the next election you will scarcely count them solid for the Repub- 
lican party. I admit that I will be glad to see the day when race lines shall 
be no longer drawn, when the people of this country shall divide upon prin- 
ciple, upon finance, upon tariffs, upon banks and currency and other such 
issues as may come before us; but as long as you attempt in the South to 
displace the more intelligent, the more moral and upright class of people, 
the property-holders, and put those who are the more idle, the more illiterate, 
and the more vicious on top, you will always find a solid South. 

I know you bnild hopes now upon Virginia since the Republican senator 
from Virtiiuia [.Mr. Mahone] has abandoned the Democracy and become 
a Republican. You expect that he will carry with him the readjusters of 
Virginia. Doubtless many of them will go; but permit me to predict that 
there is many an honest old Democrat iu the mountains of Virginia who, 
when he separated from the regular Democratic party upon the debt-paying 
question, did not feel that he had started over into the Republican camp, 
and when he finds that the senator from Virginia [Mr. Mahone] is leading 
him there and has joined the Republicans himself, and that out of from one 
to two hundred votes that he has cast io this body he has cast every one 
vi'ith. you and not one with the Democrats, the hard-fisted old Democrat 



654 APPENDIX. 

there will begin to inquire, "How is this? My leader has abandoned the 
principles we started in upon, as I understood them; I did not start into 
the Republican camp, and I am not going there." I understand the policy 
and I have a right to comment upon it, because it has been announced here 
that you throw this support to the senator from Virginia and his friends 
with a view of uniting the elements there that can give the Repubhcan 
party the power, ai.d it has been further very strongly intimated to us that 
this work was to go on into the other Southern States. 

In my State we have had divisions among the Democrats. In the seventh 
and ninth congressional districts, the mountain portion and the stronghold 
of the Democracy, a large wing of the Democrats revolted against what they 
considered corruption or trickery in the party caucuses; independent candi- 
dates came out, gentlemen of ability and worth, and led them against the 
regular nominees. What was the result? The Republicans fell in with the 
independents, as is usual in such a case, and these gentlemen were elected 
and they have served ably and well here. But permit me to tell you now in 
behalf of those independent Democrats at home they did not start into your 
camp when they started to follow the independent candidates, and they are 
not going tliere. It has been said that the independent leaders frotn my 
State have been very kindly received in very high quarters here, and the 
support of the Government has probably been tendered to them, or at least 
intimations of that character given, for them to lead down there and over- 
turn the regular Democracy. If that has been so, for their benefit you had 
better keep it a secret, for when it is known by the Democrats in the mountains 
of Georgia that they are in league with the Republican party or that there is any 
purpose to lead them into it, the Democrats will drop these independent leaders 
and* they will have no chance for re-election. But I will not do those leaders 
the injustice to believe that these reports are true or that they would at- 
tempt to overturn the Democratic party and build up the Republican party. 

As long as the independents can lead the independent wing of the De- 
mocracy and you are willing to tie on as the tail to the kite, they can be 
elected as independents ; but when the effort is to carry them over into the 
Republican ranks or to defeat the Democratic party, they will not go. Now 
and then an ambitious man who wants office may go; now and then an 
aspiring young man may go ; but whenever it is understood that your pur- 
pose is to reconstruct the South again and to place the lower strata in intelli- 
gence of our people above the higher, in other words, to place the ignorance 
and vice — for there is generally more vice among the ignorant — above the 
intelligent, the wise, and the property-holders, and when that bugle-note is 
sounded down there, you will find that the young men will not feel flattered 
with their associates when they go over into your camp; you will simply 
drive our people back to solidity again. 

My honorable friend from Connecticut [Mr. Hawley] turned a fine period 
or two on that subject the other day, and I should like to refer to it. He 
speaks of a senator who said about the commencement of the last presiden- 
tial campaign, " We come to you with 138 votes, and we ask you to name 
us a man who can bring us 47 more; " and he adds : 

"That short paragraph went from hamlet to hamlet and from Maine to 
California; it was rung nightly, travelling with the curfew bell from Maine 
to California, and its full meaning was comprehended." 

I admit that the very fact that the South was spoken of as solid gave the 
Republicans a rallying cry for a solid North. Suppose, however, a Republi- 
can had gotten up, as 1 have no doubt many a one did in the Northern 
States in the campaign, and said, " Here are fourteen States solid for the 
Republican party, nobody doubts that they will vote Republican, to wit, Iowa, 



APPENDIX. 655 

Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Penn- 
sylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, and Maine; 
here we present you 149 votes. Name a man who can briwg 36 from the 
doubtful States, and we can elect him. " That is simply analogous to the 
other case. 

You have never known a political division yet where there were not certain 
States that were solid on each side. The South under the old state of 
things was generally Democratic. Who doubted before the war that Massa- 
chusetts would vote the Whig ticket under the old division? Who ques- 
tioned that Kentucky would go Whig when Henry Clay led it? An intelli- 
gent people always know before the campaign is opened that there are 
certain States that will be solid on each side, and that the contest is to be 
for the doubtful States. 

That is what the solid South means. As long as you have a majority of 
States North or of States with the help of a few doubtful States that can 
put you in the majority, and you seek to use that majority to overturn our 
institutions, and put the ignorance and vice of the South in control over the 
intelligence and virtue and property of the South, so long as we believe your 
solid North means that, you drive us to be solid; we cannot disband with 
self-respect ; we can not do it with safety. Put yourselves in our condition and 
would you do it ? You could not afford to do it. You would not do it in Mas- 
sachusetts; you would do it in no State in this Union. Whenever you are no 
longer solid at the North and we hear no more about republicanizing certain 
States,no matter what the means may be, we shall soon cease to be solid. Pre- 
sent us issues of the character I mentioned awhile ago,tariff, banks, etc., and let 
those be the only questions, and we will divide as soon as you will, and without 
regard to color lines. But it seems to be the policy without any regard to what 
will be the consequences to say that you must republicanize those States, 
whether they desire to be Republican or not, and to do that you must have 
every ignorant colored man vote that you would not permit to vote in your 
States ; and then if we by kind treatment or any of the appliances that you 
use at home vote them, and you do not carry the election, there is a great 
complaint over it. 

Let me say another thing in connection with the colored men. You made 
a mistake, and I apprehend you see it, so far as party power was concerned 
when you gave them the ballot. Taking the census of lc>70 and counting 
the then ratio of representation, the colored people of the United States 
represented thirty-six members in Congress and thirty-six members in the 
electoral college. With that stricken out you would have had an easy tri- 
umph. Add that to the power of the South and you do not have an easy 
one. Count the same vote now ; take the census of 1880. We do not yet 
know what the ratio of representation will be, but count it at three hundred 
and seven, and then there is within a fraction of forty representatives of 
the colored race, nearly all from the South. You made a mistake, which I 
apprehend you would not make again if you could recall it, when you gave 
us this additional power there; and having made it possibly you have re- 
gretted it; but you cannot retrieve it by attempting to force into power the 
elements of the character that 1 have mentioned, which you exclude from 
the ballot-box at home over the elements in our State such as control matteis 
in yours. 

1 have already referred to the remarks of the senator from Connecticut 
[Mr. Hawley] that the solid South pronounced the fifteenth amendment a 
failure. We do not. Colored suffrage is not only established, but with us 
it shall remain established. You gave it to us against our will at the time, 
at a great risk to society, but we have struggled through the embarrassment 



656 APPENDIX. 

and reached a point where the two races are acting harmoniously, kindly, 
and in friendship together. You have given us about forty members of 
Congress that we would not have had, and about forty members of the elec- 
toral college that we would not have had, and you can never take them 
from us. It takes three-fourths on a constitutional amendment to get rid 
of that, and there is not a Southern State that will evtr agree to it. We 
have found that we can work in harmony and in fraternal relations with the 
colored race who were raised with and by us. They have (bund that we are 
their best friends. We intend to work in harmony with them, and we 
intend to hold the power that you in an unfortunate moment for your party 
gave us, and we will never relinquish it. 

A good deal however has been said about a fair count as well as a free 
ballot. I do not deny that you count fair in Massachusetts and elsewliere in 
New England. 1 do deny that you have a free ballot there. I have 
commented on Massachusetts. A word in reference to Connecticut. If the 
Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Anthony] makes a true statement in refer- 
ence to it, and I quote from him in regard to Connecticut, a man twenty-one 
years of age and upward must be able to read and must be of good moral char- 
acter before he can vote. The senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] says 
that does not exclude anybody. I do not know; I believe the Connecticut 
people are very good people. I speiit some time with them in my college 
dajs ; I was treated kindly by them ; 1 have no unkind expression to use in 
reference to them, but I presume it is a misfortune of every community, no 
matter how steady may be the habits of the land, to have some immoral 
people. I have applied at the Census Office. I could not get the illiteracy 
of Connecticut or of Massachusetts in the case of persons over twenty-one 
years of age, for it is not yet ready, as the Superintendent tells me, but 1 
take it for granted that there is a considerable number of men in Coiniecticut 
who cannot read, and there are at least a few immoral men there. They are 
excluded by the laws of Connecticut from the ballot. Tlierefore tliere is not 
a free ballot ; in other words, there is not tmiversal suffrage in Connecticut ; 
there is not manhood suffrage there. In Rhode Island the same is true, as 
is admitted by all. Tliere is a property qualification there lor naturalized 
citizens. The senator from Rliode Island [Mr. Anthony] stated that there 
are two thousand excluded from the polls there. Then it is not a free ballot 
\yhen even two thousand citizens are driven away frotn the polls; it is not a 
free ballot when a hundred thousand, if that be the number in Massa- 
chusetts, are driven away from the polls, or eighteen thousand if that be the 
number. 

In reference to that good old Granite State of Xew Hampshire the senator 
from Rhode Island [Mr. Anthony] says that both parties resisted the repeal 
of the Catholic test there until 1877. No man tliere until that time could 
hold the office of governor of the State or member of the Legislature unless 
he professed the Protestant religion. In other words, a Catholic, no matter 
how intelligent he might be, could not hold either of those high offices be- 
cause of his religious taith. We have nothing of tiiat in the South. There- 
fore, I say we have a fieer ballot there than you have in New Englan((, and 
we have as fair a count there as you have. Though there may have been 
some trouble about a fair count at an earlier period for the reasons that 1 
have mentioned, it is not so now. 

The honorable senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cameron] said the other 
day in his speech : 

" For all true men who uphold the laws, the Republican party has confi- 
dence, respect, and co-operation." 

Again he says : , - 



APPENDIX. 657 

" We have no prejudices on account of old conflicts. Whoever is right at 
the present time is our friend, and we are his." 

I say that is a noble sentiment. He does not go back then to the period 
when there may have been any difficulty about a free ballot or any difficulty 
about a fair count. He inquires what is it now, and he has to do that to 
maintain his position in reference to the Republican senator from Virginia. 
We meet him there, and we have a right to claim his confidence and respect. 
I claim it for the Democracy of Georgia, because we stand right on that 
platform to-day ; I claim it for myself, and I claim the patronage of the Gov- 
ernment for my State on that line. 

But the honorable senator from Connecticut [Mr. Hawley] u^ed another 
expression that might possibly exclude me from these benefits. He used this 
language : 

" VV'hen he," — speaking of a Southern senator — "takes his seat on this side 
and teils you that he does not care for your caucus, that what you do in there 
is a matter of total indifference to him, I shake hands with him, Mahone or 
anybody else ; and the more of them the more welcome." 

The reason why I cannot claim this good promise, then, of the senator 
from Pennsylvania is that, while I stand for a free ballot and a fair count 
and a faithful execution of the reconstruction measures and the constitutional 
amendments, and will fight with you there to the end of the chapter, I did 
not comply with the other prerequisite — I did not take my seat on that side. 
Gentlemen, I was not elected to go on that side; I deceived nobody in my 
campaign ; I took the advanced position on the night before my election, as 
my colleague has told you ; 1 laid down in the broadest terms that I would 
stand for a free ballot and a fair count, that I would stand for doing justice 
to the colored race, that 1 would recommend some of them for office, and that 
I was for the faithful execution of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth 
amendments. I am entitled, then, to the promise ot the senator from Penn- 
sylvania if I had not come under the exclusion of the senator from Con- 
necticut, whose requisition is that the senator shall take his seat on that 
side. 

But you have not always had a fair count, I think ; at least, if you have, 
the majority has not ruled under that count, lu 1876 Mr. Tilden carried a 
popular vote of over a quarter of a million, and if I know anything I know 
that he honestly carried the State of Florida, for I was there and saw what 
was done, and he was elected fairly, but he did not get counted in. I insist 
that it was not a fair count, and the Democrats, a majority of them, did not 
make it either. No, gentlemen, at your door lies the charge that you do not 
in your own States maintain a free ballot, and you have not in your prac- 
tices maintained a fair count. 

A word in reference to the strange state of things in Virginia. You have 
seized, and as a party measure I have nothing to say about it, what you con- 
sider the readjuster element there, and you are seeking to blend it with the 
Republican element and carry that State. I am not going to discuss the re- 
pudiation question there at all. I believe all admit that there is a difference 
bt-tween the funders and readjusters, as they are called, as to $12,000,000 
of the debt; but I simply want to say this, that you niay drive the people of 
Virginia into what you may call an error that they do not want to commit, and 
that you would not want to see them commit. You seek to take advantage of 
the division on the debt question to carry one portion of the Democracy into 
the Republican camp. The Democracy ot Virginia proper, the property- 
I olders, the educated people, the church going people, a large majority of 
them — for there are .some on all sides 1 admit, and I do not make any attack 
on anybody — but what you usually call the intelligent or ruling class of people 
42 



658 APPENDIX. 

as you would say in the other States, have stood manfully up for maintain- 
ing the credit of the old State ; but they will understand you now, whether 
correctly or not, as tendering this issue to them : You say, " We intend to 
take hold of this readjustt-r element and put the negroes and readjusters and 
the tew white Repul)licans who are there in power." They may reach the 
point where the supremacy ol intelliuence, education, virtue and property for 
the preservation of society may become more important to the Democracy of 
Virginia than the payment of her debt to your Northern capitalists ; and 
they may find it necessary to drcp their internal strifes, and, if you will have 
it so, turn overboard this j812,OUO,000 of the public debt, and, if necessary to 
their reunion and the preservation of their society, tumble f 12,00(t.000 more 
over with it, or let the whole of it go rather than have ruin brought upon 
the State by putting her under the control of a class of people, a large major- 
ity of whom are such as you will not admit to the ballot-box in your own 
States. 

I do not know what the proud people of that grand and glorious old Com- 
monwealih will do, that old mother of States and statesmen ; I venerate her 
name and I glory in her history, for my ancestry on both sides lived upon 
her soil; but 1 can see that you may drive the virtue and intelligence of 
that State to the point that they will tumble the whole debt overboard, if 
necessary, rather than submit to the ruin of society that you purpose to fasten 
upon them ; and when they do it, you cannot reasonably condemn them. 
They have been able thus far to fight successfully the readjusters ; they may 
not be able to fight successfully the readjusters with the patronage of the 
Senate of the United States and the patronage of the Federal Government. 
Jn other words, they may not be able to fight the readjusters and the Federal 
(iovernment; when they find they are not, I presume they will take care of 
their institutions by letting the debt go if it be necessary. Will you condemn 
them when they do it? Will you cry "repudiation " it you drive them to 
repudiate to protect their society? 

i have already said that the independent Democrats of the South will not 
dare unite with you, their leaders 1 mean will not dare do it, for their fol- 
lowers, or the mass of them, who are Democrats, will not go with them and 
will not support them. And now let me say a few words more in conclusion, 
for I have another single point. 

At the end of the war, as I have already stated, we were a conquered peo- 
ple ; we had to submit to the terms dictated by the conqueror; and we had 
to take whatever you put upon us ; and it was very hard. We have atoned for 
our treason, as you term it, and we have been admitted back to these halls 
by Senators and Kepiesentatives, and we have come to stay here and you 
cannot reconstruct us again. The condition is very different from what it was 
then. Now prosperity has been restored to the country. Your Northern 
capitalists did not have money investments there in that day; they have 
poured in there recently by the millions their money. We open a broad 
field for investment ; we have unbounded resources ; we have a climate not 
surpassed on the face of the earth ; our cotton crop alone this year, if it 
reaches 6,000,000 bales, as we suppose it will, will pour into the South $300,- 
000,000 in gold ; our mineral wealth is not probably surpassed anywhere on 
the globe— I do not speak so much of the precious metals as 1 do of the 
coal and the iron and the minerals that make a people great — our commer- 
cial importance is every day increasing; our cities are growing ; our rail- 
roads have become organized, they are penetrating every portion of our 
country. 

Your Northern capital is coming down there and being invested, and what- 
ever may have been our errors in the past upon that subject we welcome 



APPENDIX. 659 



% 



you now; come among us; we extend to you a cordial greeting; we invite 
you to our houses, to our parties, to our bosoms, wliere you come intending 
to make good citizens, and we share with you this splendid domain that is 
not anywhere surpassed on the face of the globe. The capacities for the 
productions of the South in future are limitless. Would you believe it, 
that, according to the last census, the whole acreage of the cotton crop in the 
Soutii for the past year is a little over half and less than two-thirds of the 
acreage of the State of Georgia? In other words, you might transfer every 
acre of cotton last year, if you could put it all together, to my own State, 
and it would cover a little more than one-half her territory. The capacity, 
then, for the production of this great staple is simply boundless. AVhy, take 
Texas alone, an empire of territory, larger than France, larger than the Em- 
pire of Germany, larger than the Empire of Austro-Hungary. We have 
merely skimmed the surface. Texas alone can produce more cotton than 
the world will need the next fifty years, and as the necessities increase, 
the production can be expanded indefinitely. Not only that, we are waking 
up a strong rivalry with you in manufacturing there. The number of pounds 
of cotton manufactured in the Southern States from 1870 to 1880 more than 
doubled itself. We are constantly putting up new mills and new machinery, 
and we are going to manufacture large quantities of it, and your Northern 
capital finds it its interest to come there, and we invite you. 

Now permit me to tell you frankly that this is not 1867 and 1868, and 
when you make this issue of radicalizing those States by overturning their 
great interests, you will not find your Northern capital flow so freeiy into 
your political coifers to carry your elections. They will say to you, " Nay, 
you must stop this ; you cannot disorganize society there ; you cannot ruin 
the interests of that country without ruining our capital;" and they will 
not go with you ; and let me warn you now tliat if you aie not careful you 
will lose a great many more votes from the Republican party in the next 
election in the Northern States than you will carry of Democrats in the 
Southern States. The war is over ; you buried "the bloody shirt" when 
you made the Republican Senator froui Virginia your leader, he being a Con- 
federate brigadier, and with that set before the people of the United States 
they wdl not enter with you again into another crusade to establish a power 
in the South that you failed to do when you gave suffrage to the negroes. 
You will have to recognize our prosperity ; we have a better country than 
you have, and though the blight #f slavery may have been upon it according 
to your estimate ; though it was our misfortune, which is removed, it will 
blight there no more ; we intend to go forw^ard and develop and grow up ; 
we intend to try to become your equals iu wealth, in intelligence, and then 
you will respect us. 

I have thanked you before and I thank you again for the efforts you have 
made, the liberality you have bhown from New England in coming up and 
agreeing with us to do your part toward the education of a class that, by the 
act of war, was turned loose upon us and carried to the polls when they were 
not able to take care of themselves. 1 say you did well there ; we welcomed 
you. 1 have given you credit where I thought you deserved it, and I think 
you do in that regard; but you will find it is a great mistake if you think 
the Democrats in the South who have followed the independents are going 
to follow them to your camp ; and I think you will find yourselves mis- 
taken in the North when you undertake to upht- ave our society again and 
subvert it for purposes of political power. 1 do not believe your people, and 
especially the large numbers of them who«have investments in our section, 
will sustain you in it. 



G^ 



APPENDIX. 



Speech gf Hon. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, Delivered in the 
Senate of the United States, January 18, 1882, on the Fol- 
lowing Resolution offered by him : 

Resolved, That it is inexpedient and unwise to contract the currency by the with- 
drawal from circulation of what are known as silver certiticates, or to discontinue or 
further restrict the coinage of silver. 

Resolved further. That gold and silver coin, based upon a proper ratio of equiva- 
lence between the two metals, and issues of paper, predicated upon and convertible into 
coin on demand, constitute the proper circulating medium of this country, 

Mr. Brown said : 

Mr. President : In the formation of society it was found that no one man 
could make for himself all the necessaries and conveniences of life. Jt 
was also discovered that by devoting his attention to a particular pursuit he 
soon became more proficient in that, and was able to do more for the in- 
terests of society by availing himself of the skill he had acquired in the pro- 
duction of a single article. The wants of men engaging in different pursuits 
soon suggested the necessity of bartering the articles produced by one for 
those produced by others. The fanner made his own bread and other pro- 
visions, but he needed the aid of the mechanic in building his house. For a 
covering for his head he looked to the hatter. The hatter needed the pro- 
visions made by the farmer, and tliey naturally proposed an excliange. The 
carpenter also needed provisions, and he was willing to exchange the pro- 
ductions of his labor for the products of the farmer's labor. 

But in this state of things it was soon found that the quantity of provis- 
ions needed by the hatter was not always a just equivalent for the hat he 
manufactured for the farmer, and the house needed by the farmer was 
probably more than an equivalent for the provisions needed by the carpenter. 
The idea then suggested itself that all should agree upon some article or 
thing which should represent values, and that it should be made the standard 
by which the value of the productions of eacli should be determined. Just 
as a yard-stick was agreed on as a proper instrument for measuring cloth, 
when the length of the stick was determined it was easy by ajjplying it to 
the bolt of cloth to ascei-tain how many yards the bolt contained; or when 
the bushel measure was agreed upon by all, it was easy, by the proper use of 
this measure, to determine how much wheat or how much corn was in the 
farmer's crop, or in the portion of it offered by him for sale. So when the 
standard of values was agreed upon by all, it w;is soon found to be no dif- 
ficult task to determine, judged by that standard, how much of the farmer's 
provisions the carpenter should have for the house built by him, and how 
many hats the farmer should receive for the provisions supplied to the 
hatter. 

The next difficulty, however, was to agree upon this common commodity 
which should represent values and become the medium of exchanges. In 
the earlier periods, among the less enlightened nations, and even at this day 
among savage tribes, certain shells of the ocean of a particular character 
were made the representatives of values, or the medium of exchange. In 
certain cases copper was agreed on as a proper medium. Hut after a 
thorough consideration some thousands of years ago, the more advanced and 
civilized nations of the earth agreed upon two metals usually known as the 
precious metals as the proper material out of which should be made the arti- 
cles to represent values and be used as money. Those metals weie gold and 
silver. They were well adapted to the use intended, as they are easily 
moulded into the proper shape and upon them can be indelibly impressed the 
stamp of the government authority, which gives to each a specific value as 



APPENDIX. 6GI 

compared with other articles of commerce by which we test the vahie of 
such articles. Again, these metals seem to have been intended by tlie 
Creator for the uses to which they have been applied, as they are found in 
larger or smaller quantities in every grand division of the globe, and they 
are nowhere found in such quantities as to exceed the legitimate demands 
of the world for a proper circulating medium. Divest them of their value as 
a circulating medium, or as a standard of the values of other articles, nnd 
they would be less useful to mankind and less valuable tlian iron, which is 
used in making the tools and implements of every trade and calling, in the 
construction of our railroads, the supply of the immense motive power used 
by land and water, the building of our houses, the construction of our ships 
at sea, and the clothing of our men of war upon the ocean. In point of in- 
trinsic value to mankind there would be no comparison between iron on the 
one hand and gold and silver on the other, were it not that the two last men- 
tioned metals have for thousands of years been used by common consent as 
a medium of exchange. The value of gold or silver is not, therefore, found 
in its intrinsic worth, but it is found in the laws of the different nations and 
the laws of trade ; and it is worth more or less as the nations stamp their 
signets of value upon it for a larger or smaller amount. 

As stated by an able French writer, M. de Lavelej'e, the value of the 
money metals is controlled by the continued and obligatory absorption of 
them at the mints at the rates fixed by law. If the employment of them for 
coinage should cease, the value of the metal would fall to a half, or a third, 
or further still. The state creates the greater part of the value, both of 
gold and of silver, for it creates a sure market for them. It is admitted that 
in the case of monopoly it is the demand which chiefly determines price. 
Now the demand which rules the market of the precious metals is that which 
acts at the mint. Minister Gaudin said, in the year 1803, the market value 
of the precious metals is the mint price. The state, therefore, which creates 
the demand can fix the price. 

The same writer, speaking of the success of France in maintaining the 
ratio of equivalence established between the two metals for so long a period, 
says : 

" Experience has demonstrated that a single country, provided it has ex- 
tended territory and a large stock of coin, can in practice maintain the ratio 
of equivalence between silver and gold which its law has established." 

And in the international conference of 1881, Lord Reay, representing 
British India, used this expression : 

" The surplus in the French budgets and the brilliant conversion of a por- 
tion of their debt just effected by the United States establish in a most re- 
markable manner that their marvellous financial condition is strong enough 
to permit of their making the experiment of bimetallism." 

Lord Reay aho admits that while gold has been adopted as the standard 
in Great Britain, British India adheres to silver monometallism. More than 
three-fourths of the whole population of the nations of the earth use silver, 
or silver and gold as the standard ; and in Great Britain and Germany, 
■where silver is demonetized, it cannot be kept out of circulation, but still re- 
tains practically almost its original power as money. The French Govern- 
ment in 18l)3, in fixing the ratio of equivalence between the two metals at 
1 in gold to 15 1-2 in silver,' was merely acting, as a distinguished writer 
says, in conformity with historical precedents, and was not violating economic 
laws. 

In the monetary conference in 1878 M. Say was able to affirm that, during 
sixty-six years the French system had stood steadfast under circumstances 
the most extraordinary — wars, invasions, revolutions, crises of every kind, 



662 APPENDIX. 

and even under the delude of gold after 1850, which it was believed would 
bring about its ruin. The French law upon this subject could not have been , 
far wrong in establishing the relative value of the two metals. If it had 
been, Fi'ance as a great cominerciai nation, surrounded by great commercial 
power?, could not for sixty-six years have maintained this difference under 
the trying circumstances in which she was placed without suffering great in- 
convenience growing out of the want of proper equilibrium. 

But there came a time when the English Government, whose colonies, I 
believe, produce a greater proportion of gold than of silver, discarded as a 
medium of exchange the silver which for centuries, by the common consent 
of the civilized world, had been used for that purpose. Germany, another 
jrreat European power, at a later period was induced to follow the lead of 
Great Britain in the demonetization of silver. Other small powers followed, 
and the Congress of the United States, on the 13th of February, 1873, passed 
a statute which authorized the coinage of the trade-dollar of 420 grains of 
standard silver, and not the old dollar of our fathers of 412 1-2 grains. The 
act also provided for other smaller silver coins, and declared that said coins 
should be a legal tender in payment of any debt not exceeding f 5, in any 
one payment. And the codifiers of our laws, at a later period, gave this 
statute a broader latitude by declaring in the code that the silver coins of 
the United States shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any 
amount not exceeding #5 in any one payment. 

This embraced not only the trade-dollar of 420 grains authorized by the 
act of 1873 and the smaller coins, but it also embraced the old dollar of 
412 1-2 grains, which had from an early period in the Government been a 
legal tender. Thus did we follow Great Britain and Germany in the de- 
monetization of silver. But it is believed that very few members of either 
House of Congress understood the scope and intent of the act of 1873. and 
the people generally felt that they had been outraged when the act was made 
public and its provisions understood. And their indignation was the greater 
when they learned that the code had been made broad enough to cover all 
silver coins of all the denominations coined in the United States, no matter 
at what period they may have been issued from the mint. 

We were then told by the representatives of the money power of the 
country ihat it had become necessary to demonetize silver, as the quantity 
was becoming so great as to destroy the proper equilibrium between it and 
gold, and to render it unsuited as a medium of exchange. And to sustain 
this theory it was affirmed that the same quantity of silver which had pre- 
viously been used in coining the legal-tender silver dollar, and which is now 
used, was as a legal tender more than the equivalent in value of the same 
number of grains of silver. In other words, that the silver out of which the 
Government of the United States had coined a silver dollar, stamped with 
the authority of the Government as a legal tender, was not worth a legal 
dollar — that this result had been produced by the overproduction of silver. 

Now, I deny the correctness of this position, and shall attempt to show 
that the argument was founded in a fallacy. As already stated, the com- 
mercial value given to either gold or silver is not its intrinsic value as a 
metal, but the value at which the Government estimates it as a medium of 
exchange, the value which, by its authority, the Government stamps upon it 
as money. Now, why was it at that time, and why is it now, that 412^ 
grains of the standard silver would not and will not in the market bring a 
legal dollar? I maintain that it is not on account of overproduction of silver 
or of the fact that the old ratio between silver and gold has been destroyed, 
but that it grew out of the fact that the British Government and the Ger- 
man Government had demonetized silver as a legal circulating medium. 



APPENDIX. 663 

This very naturally reduced in the market the value of silver as a metal. 
The value is reduced as compared with gold, not because the equilibrium 
upon the old ratio has been, in fact, destroyed by the overproduction of sil- 
ver, but because the great powers mentioned retained gold as a medium of 
exchange, giving it as a metal the fictitious value which it has on account of 
its being stamped by authority of the Government as money, while that 
fictitious value was withdrawn from silver, and it was left, so far as its legal 
status was concerned, to stand upon its natural value as a commodity, or as 
other metals stand. And but for the fact that the larger portion of the 
world continued to use it as money it would have depreciated to a much 
greater extent. There had, therefore, on account of the action of the two 
great powers above mentioned, been a reduction of the value of silver in the 
market. When the United States demonetized it this produced a still 
greater redaction in its value. With all this injustice done to silver as a 
circulating medium, it maintained a high standard of value, much above 
what could have been expected in the face of the unfriendly legislation of 
the great powers above mentioned. 

Now let us reverse the picture for a moment. Suppose at the time Great 
Britain demonetized silver, that Government had retained silver as money, 
or as a circulating medium, and had demonetized gold ; and Germany had 
followed suit; and the United States had then in turn reduced its power as 
a legal tender to debts not exceeding five dollars, who can doubt that with 
this injustice done gold it would have fallen as much below silver in the 
market, relatively, as silver under the like unfriendly legislation has fallen 
below gold? 

But I may be told that the act of Congress of February 28, 1878, remone- 
tized silver, and authorized the secretary of the treasury to have coined 
silver dollars of 412^ grains of standard silver, which were again declared 
to be a legal tender, and that notwithstanding this remonetization of silver, 
the silver bullion still sells in the market for a lower price than the same 
quantity of silver brings when coined into a legal-tender dollar. This may 
be true, but the cause that has produced the decline in the silver has not yet 
been removed ; otherwise it would not be true. The Government only per- 
mits the Coinage of from two to four millions of silver dollars each month ; 
in practice, about two million. Let the Congress of the United States pass 
an act making it the duty of our mints to coin all the silver that is produced 
in this country into legal tender, with/'u// dfhl-payivg and purchasiiuf capacdy, 
and you will see and hear in the United States no more of the destruction of 
the equilibrium as heretofore established between gold and silver. Of 
course, silver has not been able to stand this unfriendly legislation without 
depreciation, and gold certainly could have stood it no better if the assault 
had been made upon that metal. 

But the important question after all probably is, what shall be the ratio of 
equivalence? It is of course very desirable that all the commercial nations 
should unite in fixing a standard, and it is believed that the French standard 
is about the true one. And France would be ready to stand with the United 
States upon that ratio. 

Notwithstanding the fact that both Germany and Great Britain decline to 
unite on both gold and silver as a circulating medium, there is no insurmount- 
able difficulty HI maintaining both metals as legal money by the other com- 
mercial nations. This fact was recognized by the representatives of the 
diff'erent powers, who advocated both gold and silver as money in the confer- 
ence of 1881, when the draught of a resolution for an international treaty 
was presented by a distinguished French representative, M. Cernuschi. It is 
proposed that the members of the union shall admit gold and silver to mint- 



664 APPENDIX. 

age without any limitation of quantity, and shall adopt the ratio of 1 to 
15^ between the weight of pure metal contained in the monetary unit in 
gold and the weight of pure metal contained in the same unit in silver. 

The position frequently taken that there is so much silver now produced 
as to make it unsafe to admit its universal coinage as a medium of exchange 
unless all the commercial powers unite can neither be maintained in sound 
theory nor in practice. Of course such union is very desirable. It has been 
well remarked that every new accession of gold or silver in fostering trade 
opens a new field of employment for itself, and prevents its own depreciation. 

I am aware that it was predici^d when we remonetized silver in the United 
States and authorized the coinage of from two to four millions of dollars per 
month of that metal that the silver coin would become so plentiful as com- 
pared with gold that other nations would import their silver to the United 
States for sale, and that we would have to pay balances abroad in gold ; that 
our gold, the more valuable article, would be purchased by silver, the less 
valuable article, from other countiies, and exported from this country, leav- 
ing the United States with a local silver circulation, while Great Britain and 
Germany maintained monometallism in gold, which would soon compel other 
great commercial countries to follow suit. 

It was said that silver was so plentiful that 1 ounce of standard gold was 
worth more than IG ounces of standard silver; or that 412^ grains of 
standard silver contained in the legal-tender silver dollar was not worth as 
much as the gold dollar of 25.8 grains ; that the ratio of 1 in gold to 16 in 
silver was not right, but that it siiould be 1 in gold to 17 or 18 in silver. 
In other words, we should put more standard silver in a legal-tender silver 
dollar than it now contains; and, to give emphasis to this theory, banks have 
thrown out the trade-dollar of 420 grains (which, compared with the coins 
of the world, is intrinsically worth more than a dollar in gold), and will only 
receive it at a heavy discount. This is done with the view, no doubt, of 
depreciating silver in the market and of deterring the Congress and the peo- 
ple of the United States from giving it its proper position as a circulating 
medium. 

The secretary of the treasury in his last annual report has thought proper 
to throw the weight of his position against silver coin in the following lan- 
guage : 

" A continuance of the monthly addition to our silver coinage will soon 
leave us no choice but that of exclusive silver coinage, and tend to reduce us 
to a place in the commercial world among the minor and less civilized 
nations. It may be assumed that a people as enterprising and progressive 
as that of the United States, holding a leading position among the nations, 
will not consent to a total abandonment of the use of gold as one of the 
metals to be employed as money ; and we cannot consent to be placed in the 
awkward position of paying for all that we buy abroad upon a gold standard 
and selling all that we have to sell upon a silver standard. It is therefore 
recommended that the provision for the coinage of a fixed amount each 
month be repealed, and the secretary be authorized to coin only so much as 
will be necessary to supply the demand." 

Again he says : 

" it is believed that the amount in circulation will be steadily increased, 
but not so fast as to require for some months or perhaps years any addition 
. to the amount already coined." 

Here the honorable secretary in effect reiterates the warning given us in 
1878 when we remonetized silver, that we must stop the coinage of silver or 
the gold would all flow from our borders and the silver come to our country 
and take its place, and that we should be reduced to a place in the commer- 



APPENDIX. 665 

cial world among tlie minor or less civilized nations. Ifow, what pretext is 
there in Tact or in practice to sustain this assumption on tlie part of the secre- 
tary of the treasury ? Absolutely none. Tiie practical results have been a 
sufficient contradiction of this theory, and that should put such assumptions 
at rest in future. We have adopted a ratio of equivalence which puts more 
silver or less gold in a dollar than the usnal standards of the world, ours 
beinoj 16 to 1, while most commercial nations adopt 15 1-2 to 1, and Germany 
in all slie now coins, 14. While this state of things lasts the practical work- 
ings of the system will continue to be the sufficient refutation of the position 
of the honorable secretary. Instead of a flow of gold from the United States 
and a flow of sdver to this country, the very reverse will be true. 

Why should the people of this vast continent, including the United State?, 
Mexico, and all the South American States, who use both gold and silver as 
legal currency, and a large majority of the people of Europe, who also use the 
double standard, and the immense number of the population of Asia, who use 
a silver currency, be unable to maintain silver in the position it has occupied 
for thousands of years as money or a>i a legal circulating medium ? 

Certainly the United States and Mexico (which taken together produce 
almost half of the precious metals) should not be among the first to consent 
to the depreciation of either of these metals. 

In a late work entitled The Silver Country, or the Great Southwest, by 
Alexander D. Anderson, I find the following statement as to the production 
of the precious metals. In referring to the country known as New Spain, 
wliich embraces Mexico and that portion of the present territory of the 
United States which formerly belonged to Spain, he says : 

" We have seen in comparing its precious metals with those of the world 
for the same periods that the Southwest from 1521 to 1876 produced over one- 
third of the combined products of silver and sold of the whole world ; that 
its silver product was from 1521 to 18i)4 a trifle less than half of that of the 
world ; from 1S04 to 1848 over half of that of the world; from 1848 to 1868 
half of that of the world ; from 1868 to 1876 but a trifle less than two-thirds 
of that of the wnrld; and for 1875, the last year of the whole period, three- 
fourths of that of the world." 

If, then, at the present time, or during the year 1875, Mexico and the 
United States produced three-fourths of all the silver of the world and 
nearly half of its gold, it seems to me it cannot be seriously contended that 
wise statesmanship would prompt either Government to give the advantage to 
(ireat Britain and Germany or to any other power by yielding for silver the 
true position which it is entitled to occupy as a m.edium of exchange in the 
commercial transactions of the world. 

When we produce more gold than any other power on earth, and when we 
fix the ratio between the two metals higher than the other leading commer- 
cial poweis fix it, how is the secretary to maintain his assertion that — 

" A maintenance of the monthly addition to our silver coinage will soon 
leave us no choice but that of an exclusive silver coinage, and tend to reduce 
us to a place in the commercial world among the minor or less civilized 
nations." 

While I do not impugn motives I must say this assertion is sustained 
neither by the facts, by sound theory, nor by practical experience. 

]>et us contrast this opinion of the secretary with that of other distin- 
guished financiers in other countries. 

In the late monetary conference, of 1881, Mr. Cernuschi, a distinguished 
delegate from France, says : 

" If, however, we were doomed to monometallism, if it were necessary to 
choose one of the two laetals, the choice could not be doubtful. Silver would 



6G6 ' APPENDIX. 

have to be chosen. The existing ma?s of gold is too small ; gold is too diffi- 
cult to subdivide ever to become uuiversal money." 

Again he says : 

" If it is real and sincere bimetallism which must be attained, it is practi- 
cable with four states, with three, or even with two. Yes, the bimetallic 
union would be supreme in the world even if composed only of the United 
States and France." i 

Now let us quote from a distinguished advocate of the gold standard in 
the late conference, and see whether he agrees with the secretary. 

Mr. Broach, the delegate from Norway, a country that has adopted gold 
monometallism, made the following important statement during the discus- 
sion : 

"hr short, universal bimetallism is not possible, for in Asia. India and 
China are silver monometallic, and in Europe two of the chief powers are 
resolved on remaining gold monometallic." 

Again, he says : 

" The United States might put up with the system, because, in the capacity 
of large exporters of merchandise payable in bills on London, they are sure 
of always keeping large quantities of gold. They could do so, also, becau^e 
they would not be exjio^ed to seeing silver flow to them. They are too great 
producers of silver for Europe to send them that metal, which they furnish, 
on the contrary, to Europe. The time is approaching, moreover, when the 
United States, sufficiently provided with coin, will no longer have to ask 
Europe for it, and when in payment of their consignments of breadstuff's and 
raw materials to the old continent they will have to demand in exchange a 
greater and greater quantity of manufactured articles, or of European securi- 
ties. But on either hypothesis they will be no resource for Europe for 
the sale of its depreciated silver." 

Here is the opinion of a distinguished representative of Norway, a mono- 
metallic gold state, sustaining that of M. Cernuschi, and Lord lleay, repre- 
senting Biitish Lidia (already quoted), that the United States in a union with 
France alone can suffer no serious detriment by adopting and practicing 
bimetallism. Then these distinguished financiers, one representing mono- 
metallism in silver, one representing monometallism in gold, and one 
bimetallism, all differ with the honorable secretary of the treasury as to the 
ability of the United States to maintain without serious difficulty the 
bimetallic standard of both gold and silver. 

Not only do these distinguished representatives of the three different sys- 
tems of metallic currency discard the theory of the secretary of the treasury, 
but, what is still more important and conclusive, in practice the facts are in 
the very teeth of his theory, and show its unsoundness beyond controversy. 
What are the practical facts ? 

I quote from the quarterly report of the chief of the bureau of statistics of 
the treasury department of the United States for the three months ending- 
June 30, 1881, wliich also contains other statistics relative to the trade and 
industries of the United States. Among those other statistics, I find on page 
444 that there were imported into the United States gold and silver coin and 
bullion during the year ending June 30, 1881, a total of $110,575,497. Of 
this amount there was $100,031,259 in gold, and 110,544,238 in silver, mak- 
ing the importation of gold during the last fiscal year within a traction of $10 
for every $1 of silver impoited. Now, let us look a moment at the exports. 
During the same period there were exported from the United States in gold, 
coin, bars, and bullion, foreign and domestic, a total of $2,565,132; and of 
silver $16,841,715 were exported. Thus we see in its practical working that 
there was in one year nearly ten times as much gold as silver imported, and 



APPENDIX. 667 

nearly seven times as much silver as gold exported, after nearly $100,000,000 
in silver had been coined under the act of 1878. 

Possibly it may be said the year 1881 was an exception to the common 
rule. Then ]^^t us see how the matter stood the previous year, ending June 
the 30th, 1880. The total importation of gold tliat year amounted to 
$80,758,396. The total importation of silver was 112,275,914, showing that 
•we imported over six and a half times as much srold as silver. 

How did the export-< stand the same year ? The domestic and foreign ex- 
ports of gold amounted to $3,639,025, and the exports of silver, domestic and 
foreign, amounted to $12,834,904. That is, we exported over three and a 
half times as much silver as gold, and we imported over six and a half times 
as much gold as silver during the year ending June 30, 1880. And during 
the year ending June 30, 1881, the importation of gold, as already stated, 
amounted to nearly ten times as much as the importation of silver, and the 
exportation of silver to about seven times as much as the exportation of gold. 
This shows that under our present system of coinage the drain of gold to the 
United States, and the drain of silver from the United States increase 
largely from year to year. And if this state of things continues for a few 
years longeron the same basis, and in the same proportions as in the last two 
years, we shall have, in the teeth of the theory of the secretary of the treasury, 
an almost exclusively gold currency, while foreign powers will have nearly all 
our silver. And the reason already given is obvious. We estimate 1 ounce 
of gold as the equivalent of 16 ounces of silver, while the Latin Union and 
other foreign nations estimate 1 ounce of gold as being worth only 15^ ounces 
of silver. Hence the drain of gold to our country, where the highest esti- 
mate is put upon it, and the drain of silver to other countries, where it is 
estimated higlier than it is in the United States. The theory of the secretary 
looks well upon paper, but it cannot for a moment stand in the light of the 
facts, nor brar the test of experience, nor endure the ordeal of practice. 

The fact that the ratio in France and most other bimetallic nations is 15^ 
to 1 while ours is 16 to 1, shows that we have discriminated against silver, 
putting more silver or less gold in the dollar than the just ratio. And this 
is demonstrated in practice, as the flow of gold is 10 for 1 to the United 
States and the flow of silver nearly 7 for 1 from the United States. Then, 
those who maintain that ihe silver dollar as compared with the gold dollar 
does not contain enough grains of silver are really in error, as is clearly 
shown in practice, which is the best test of the correctness of a theory. One 
practical fact is worth half a dozen theories that will not work in practice. 
If, then, we would do full justice to our great silver-mining interests in this 
country, and would place silver and gold on the proper ratio existing in most 
parts of the world, we should put more gold into the standard gold dollar 
than we now do if we maintain the standard silver dollar at 412| grains. I 
repeat, it is not true in practice, and the theory that asserts it is therefore 
erroneous, that 4121 grains of standard silver in this country is intrinsically 
worth less than the legal-tender gold dollar. We have not fixed the ratio 
as to silver too low, but if we have erred at all we have fixed it too high, and 
if the trade-dollar of 420 grains of standard silver, or 420 grains of standard 
silver in any other shape, will sell in our market for less than a legal-tender 
dollar, it grows out of the fact that we have by legislation discriminated 
against silver and in favor of gold, and thereby depreciated the price in the 
market. A test which, under like unfavorable legislation, gold could endure 
no better than silver has. 

Neither the people of the United States nor the other great powers of 
Europe look at present with favor upon the action of Great Britain and 
Germany in demonetizing silver; and if the Government of the United 



608 APPENDIX. 

States will stand firmly upon the old rule, and, as the heaviest producer of 
both the precious metals, give to each, to the extent of our power, its proper 
position in the currency of the world, it will not, with the aid of the other 
bimetallic powers, be many years before the contest will be ended and silver 
coin will again occupy its proper position, not only in the United States, but 
in every country in Europe, as it now does in every country elsewhere; and 
the proper ratio of relative value will still be found to be from 15 to IG of 
silver for 1 of gold. 

The President pro tempore. Is it the pleasure of the senate that the 
morning hour shall be extended until the senator from Georgia concludes 
his remarks ? 

Mr. Allison. I move that it be extended. 

The President pro tempore. The Chair hears no objection, and the morn- 
ing hour will be so extended. 

Mr. Brown. Not only do the other leading nations of Europe deprecate 
the course taken by Great Britain and Germany in the demonetization of 
silver, but the German Empire is itself sensible of the danger attending its 
general demonetization. In the monetary conference of 1881, the chief 
representative of the German Empire, Baron von Thielmann, refers to this 
question in terms of no doubtful import. He says: 

" We recognize, without reserve, that the rehabilitation of silver is to be 
desired, and that it may be attained by the re-establishment of free coinage 
of silver in a certain number of the most populous States represented in this 
conference, if these States, to this end, should adopt as a basis a fixed rela- 
tion between the value of gold and that of silver.' 

And after stating that Germany adheres to her present system, he says : 

" The imperial government is, on the other hand, entirely disposed to do 
its best to second the efforts of the other powers which might wish to unite, 
with a view to the rehabilitation of silver by means of free coinage of this 
metal. In order to reach this end and to guaranty these powei-s against 
the afiiux of German silver, which they seem to fear, the imperial govern- 
ment would voluntarily impose upon itself the following restrictions: 

" During a period of some years it would abstain from all sales of silver, 
and during another period of a certain duration it would pledge itself to sell 
annually only a limited quantity, so small in amount that the general market 
would not be glutted thereby. The duration of these periods and the quan- 
tity of silver to be sold yearly during the second period would form the sub- 
ject of ulterior negotiations. Such an arrangement would efficiently protect 
the mints of bimetaUic States against the unlimited overflow of German 
thalers drawn from the national fund. Private individuals, or the Imperial 
Bank, (which is a private bank under special control of the government.) 
would not be able, on the other hand, to cau?e thalers to flow to the mints 
of the bimetallic union, except in the case of the balance of trade being 
against Germany, or unless the relation of 1 to 15^ establif^hed by the bi- 
metallic union should undergo a considerable modification in favor of silver. 
This last contingency appears, however, but slightly probable. 

" In all other cases the exportation of thalers would of necessity entail a loss 
to those who might undertake it; and hence the States of the bimetallic union 
have no occasion to apprehend that the silver of Germany will inundate their 
mints. Furthermore, these operations could be rendered still more difficult 
by excluding specie in thalers from the coinage in the bimetallic union. A 
measure of this kind would add to the other expenses to be borne by the ex- 
porters of silver that of the cost of melting down and refining the thalers." 
So the United States could very easily keep out an influx of European 
coins by refusing to permit their coinage at our mints. 



APPENDIX. 669 

But the German delegate continues : 

"If an international arrangement based upon these indications could be 
arrived at, (Germany would still remain free to sell silver within these self- 
imposed limits, or to sell none at all. But Germany, in order still further 
to contract even these limits, might make other concessions. She could pro- 
vide in lier own circulation a wider area for the metal silver, thus enlarging 
the use of it. 

*• To attain this end, the imperial government would engage eventually to 
retire the gold pieces of five marks, (twenty-seven and three-fourths millions,) 
as well as the imperial treasury notes of the same value, (forty millions ot 
marks.) It might further melt down and recoin the silver pieces of five and 
two marks, (seventy-one and one hundred and one millions of marks,) taking 
as a basis a relation between the two metals approaching that of 1 to lo-^, 
whereas under existing legislation one hundred marks are made from the 
pound of tine silver, which is equivalent nearly to the ratio of 1 to 14. 

" You have here, gentlemen, the concessions which the imperial govern- 
ment would offer, and of which its delegates are now ready lo discuss the 
scope and the details of execution." 

This shows conclusively that the German Government sees the hazard in 
the future involved in its new system, and that it is ready by self-imposed 
restrictions to do all it can, short of present abandonment of the system of 
gold monometallism, to encourage the rehabilitation of silver. AVith these 
restrictions imposed upon the sale of German silvei-, a very large part of 
which, by the by, has already gone upon the market, and with the bimetallic 
system accepted by the Latin Union, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, and with 
said system prevailing as it now does all over the continent of America, and 
with monometallisrei m silver as the rule in Asia, there could, it seems, be no 
serious hazard to our Government and commerce in establishing bimetalli»m 
on a firm basis. 

It is very clear from the foregoing statement that the German Government 
is not willing in future to sell its silver upon a basis of more silver than 15j^ 
to 1 in gold. Under the present law of Germany there is a small quantity 
of silver coined for each inhabitant of the empire, about ten marks, I believe, 
and there, as stated by the German delegate, the ratio established is about 
1 to 14. When our ratio is 1 to 16 there is no danger of German silver in- 
undating o'ur mints or interfering with our markets. They do not wish to 
sell their silver at the price we put upon it. While we hold it at 1 to 16, 
silver will be drained from America to Europe, and not from Europe to 
America. This is clearly shown by the importation and exportation of gold 
and silver for the past two years, and cannot be changed unless there is an 
immense overproduction of silver. But here again the very reverse is true ; 
the overproduction is in gold, and not in silver. 

Dr. Broach, of Norway, prepared a table, which he laid before the mone- 
tary conference of 1881, from the best sources of information at his com- 
mand, as to the production of the precious metals in the world since the 
discovery of America, estimating the value of each metal during each period 
in francs. 

From the year 1493 to 1600 the whole production, in round numbers in 
francs, was, of gold, 2,600,000,000; silver, 5,074,000,000. From 1601 to 1700, 
of gold, 3,143,000,000; silver, 8,275,000,000. From 1701 to 1800, of gold, 
6,544,000,000 ; silver, 12,672,000,000. From 1801 to 1850, of gold, 4,081,- 
000,000; silver, 7,271,000,000. During tlie twenty-nine years from 1851 to 
1879, gold, 18,778,000,000; silver, 9,101,000,000. Showing that during the 
eighteenth century the silver produced by the world doubled the gold in 
value. During the first half of the present century it occupied the relation 



670 APPENDIX. 

of about 4 in gold to 7 in silver ; and for the last twenty-nine years the pro- 
duction of gold has more than doubled that of silver. 

So far, then, from there being a necessity for depreciating the value of 
silver in tlie coinage on account of overproduction, the value of gold should 
be depreciated and the value of silver increased. In other words, if either 
must be demonetized on account of overproduction, it should be gold, which 
from half the amount of silver produced during the eighteenth century 
sprang during the tweuty-nine years alter 1850 to double the amount of 
silver produced. 

As already stated, then, overproduction is not the difBculty. The world 
is nuiknig rapid strides in developing new enterprises every year. Commerce 
has received an impetus from the discoveries made in the arts and in the 
sciences, in steam and electricity, within the last half of a century, which 
has no p.arallel and no approximation to a parallel in all the lii-tory of the 
past. The different nations of the world are being thrown together as near 
neighbors, space is being annihilated, and the human race is becoming more 
intimately associated as one people. There has been a rapid advancement 
in agriculture, in all the mechanic arts, in railroading, shipbuilding, in trans- 
portation on hind and by sea, in manufactures and commerce, requiring a 
greatly increased quantity of money fur a circulating medium to do the 
business of the world, and instead of an overproduction of the precious 
metals, the great increase in the demand, and the yearly waste or loss from 
use taken into the account, the present production is not adequate to the 
real wants of mankind. This is further demonstrated by the extensive use 
of a paper circulation not predicated upon a solid specie basis which several 
great powers are compelled to adopt, in tiie monetary conference of 1878 
Air. (joshen, in speaking of having gold alone as a standard, uttered a solemn 
warning when he said : 

"Any important new step in this direction will have the effect of provok- 
ing one of the gravest crises ever undergone by commerce." 

And he adds : 

"The theory of a universal gold standard is Utopian, and, indeed, involves 
a false Utopia." 

And he might truthfully have added, it is a departure from the practice 
of civilized nations for many centuries past. 

Why, then, should we, the great silver-prodticing power, seek to depreciate 
the value of this most valuable and precious product? Why should we join 
with Great Britain and Germany in destroying the relative position it has 
held during all the past history of the world as compared with gold, giving 
to gold alone the name and importance of money ? 

It is a well known fact that silver is the principal money or medium of 
exchange used in China, British India, Japan, and in fact all the other 
eastern nations. More than two thirds of tiie people of the globe prefer it 
to gold, and use it chiefly as their money. South America is a large producer 
of both gold and silver; so is Mexico, but there the silver dollar is still 
recognized and used as a circulating medium, as legal money; no discrimi- 
nation against it. 

We are fast becoming a vast manufacturing power, as well as a great agri- 
cultural power, with a large surplus of our farm products and the products of 
our different manufacturing establishments for exportation. We look chiefly 
to China and other eastern nations and to South America as the markets 
where we can most successfully compete with England and France and other 
commercial powers, but especially with the former. There is a very large 
balance of trade against us in Brazil and the West Indies. Both these 
countries use silver as legal money. In paying that large balance of trade 



APPENDIX. 671 

in specie, why should we send our gold, if we prefer to keep ifc, out of the 
country, when they would as soon have silver? Wiiy not send it to them in 
payment of these balances ? The same remark applies to the Hawaiian 
L-ilands, where our purchase of sugar turns the balance of trade against us. 
Why not maintain our silver standard and our silver coins, and pay these 
balances in silver or in gold as it suits our convenience; and why not send 
our silver to China and the other eastern nations in exchange for their com- 
modities; for there, too, the balance of trade is largely against us? 

We occupy the vantage-gronnd in this, that the balance of trade is largely 
due to us from the great gold powers, as Great Britain and Germany, and 
they settle balances with us in gold. On the other hand, the large balances 
of trade against us are due to the foreign powers in which silver alone or 
silver and gold are the standard, and we can settle with them in silver. 

Great Britain in demonetizing silver may have advanced her European 
interests, but it can not be said she has advanced her trade with eastern 
powers. She has struggled hard to introduce gold currency in India, where 
she dominates, but she has been unable to do so. Why then should not the 
United States, the great silver producing power, stand by her production 
and maintain for it its proper position as money, to be used perpetually in 
our compel iiion with Great Britain for this vast and growing trade? 

Mr. Jevons, an able British author, speaking of the policy of Great Britain 
and Germany in demonetizing silver and its effects upon the commercial 
world, says : 

'•The nations of Europe constitute only a small part of the nations of the 
earth. The hundreds of millions who inhabit India and China and other 
parts of the eastern and tropical regions employ a silver currency, and there 
is not the least fear that they will make any sudden change in their habits. 
The English Government has repeatedly tried to introduce gold currency 
into her East India possessions, but has always failed. The gold coins now 
circulating there are supposed not to exceed one-tenth of the metallic cur- 
rency. Although the pouring out of forty or fifty millions sterling from Ger- 
many may for some years depress the price of the metal, it can be gradually 
absorbed without difficulty by the eastern nations, which have for two or 
three thousand years received a continual stream of the precious metals from 
Europe. If the other nations should one after another demonetize silver, yet 
the East may be found quite able to absorb all that is thrown upon it." 

This is the opinion of an English writer. In this state of the case, why 
should the Government of the United States, looking as it must do to these 
great eastern nations for a vast commercial intercourse, which will be greatly 
to our advantage, strike down silver as a currency or as a medium of Ex- 
change, and thus lose the great advantage which its use would give her with 
those densely-populated countries where it stands in such high favor as the 
principal currency in use? i^ouking to the present, and more especially to 
the near future, it seems to me that neither wise statesmanship nor practical 
common sense would dictate such a course. 

In the nature of things there can be no more reason why gold should fix 
the standard value of silver than why silver should fix the standard value of 
gold. Commercial nations have given to gold the greater value because it 
was the scarcer metal. But in its essence it is no better adapted for the uses 
of currency than silver; indeed, gold is probably less adapted to the uses of 
a circulating medium, as the loss by wear, when the value is considered, is 
much greater. But after all the value of any article or commodity to be used 
as a circulating medium depends on the ability and authority of the govern- 
ment that puts it into circulation. A piece of blank bank-note paper is in- 
trinsically as valuable us a one-hundred dollar United States Treasury note 



672 APPENDIX. 

of the same size and weight. But, in fact, the first is worth almost notliing, 
while the last is worth a hundred dollars. Why? Because tlie Treasury 
note has upon it the stamp of the authority of the Government of the United 
States, declaring that this piece of paper shall be a legal tender in the pay- 
ment of debts. If it were stamped with the same letters and figures, bearing 
the sauie colors and appearance, with the name of some Indian tribe or Alii- 
can chief, it would probably have no greater value than its size and weight 
in blank paper. It is the authority of the Government and its ability to pay 
and its known good faith that gives value to its promises and causes mankind 
to i-eceive the paper bearing the stamp of its authority as money. 

I have assumed, and I have no doubt correctly, in this age of enterprise, 
improvement, and development, that all the gold and silver in the world is 
scarcely adequate to the requirements of the world to supply the demand for 
money now m existence. It might or might not have been as well for man- 
kind if gold alone or silver alone had been agreed upon as the circulating 
medium or as money. In that event all the property of the world, compared 
with this standard, would to-day have had a value of say one-half its present 
value computed in pounds or dollars, because the quantity of the circulating 
medium or standard by which all the property of the world was to be meas- 
ured or weighed would have been, if gold had been the only standard, about 
half what it now is. Say, for the purpose of illustration, that one-half of the 
money in the world estimated in dollars or pounds, to-day, is gold and the 
other half is silver. If you strike down silver as a circulating medium and 
destroy its value as money, you will have just one-half as much metallic 
money in circulation as there was before you demonetized the silver. And 
in doing this you at once reduce the price of every man's property as com- 
pared with the standard value of gold coin just one-half. Now I can very 
readily see the great advantage such an act would be to those who have 
hoarded large quantities of gold, and to the holders of gold in every part of 
the world. Before the demonetization of silver, in the case supposed, the 
property of each person was worth in dollars double the amount it is worth 
after the demonetization. It would follow, therefore, that the creditor after 
the demonetization ot silver, in the collection of a debt contracted belore the 
demonetization, would get twice as much property in payment of his debt as 
he would have had if the currency had remained on a bimetallic basis as it 
was when the debt was contracted. 

Again, every capitalist holding a large amount of gold at the time of the 
demonetization ot silver could afterwards buy twice as much property with 
his gold as he could have done it: silver had remained money. It is not very 
strange that the wealthiest nations and the largest capitalists of the world, 
having the control of most of the gold of the world, should desire to strike 
down silver as a circulating medium, or as money, and establish gold as the 
sole standard, as this would at once double their wealth by giving them the 
control of the larger part of the money of the world, and enribling them, with 
that money, to buy double as much property as they could have bought under 
the old system. 

Let us consider this question a moment in connection with our own affairs 
in this country. At the time silver was demonetized by Congress there was 
a very large proportion of the people of the United States heavily in debt. 
A much smaller class, who were capitalists of great wealth and power, had 
large accumulations of money at their command. Most of those belonging 
to this able, wealthy, and honorable class were bankers, bondholders, or 
lieavy capitalists. The United States Treasury notes known as greenbacks 
had been depreciated almost from the time they were issued and had at that 
time never reached par. And why ? Because the Government, in issuing 



APPENDIX. 673 

them, had declined to make them a legal tender in payment of the bonds of 
the United States or of the coupons upon the bonds, and had declined itself 
to receive them in payment of duties on imports. It' they had been leceiva- 
ble by the Government they would long since have been at par. In this in- 
flated conciition of the currency, when greenbacks were far below par, the 
people had contracted large indebtedness. At that time those debts could 
be paid either in greenbacks, gold, or silver coin. But Congress, it is believed, 
at the instance and certainly with the warm approbation of the bondholders, 
the bankers, the capitalists, and the monopolists of this country, passed the 
act to demonetize silver, thereby, in case of every indebtedness over five dol- 
lars, making gold the only legal metallic tender in payment. Congress at 
that time still refused to receive its owu Treasury notes in payment ot duties 
on imports. 

It has been frequently said in discussions of this currency question that 
justice to the public creditors of the United States requires that the bonds of 
the Government should be redeemed in gold coin, which is the only money 
that is a legal tender in Great Britain and Germany and which the gold 
party of the United States has struggled hard to dignify with the same ex- 
clusive prerogative in this country. 

And here the secretary of the treasury comes in as an able ally of the 
gold party and the bondholders. In his annual report, referring to the act 
of 1873, he says : 

"Although the act of July 14, 1870, provides for the issue of United States 
bonds redeemable in coin of the present standard value, whereby were in- 
cluded both gold and silver coin of that value, yet as by the act of February 
12, 1873, the further coinage of silver dollars was prohibited, and the Re- 
vised Statutes declared gold coin only to be a legal tender for sums exceed- 
ing five dollars, equity, if not strict construction of law, requires that the 
holders of such bonds should receive payment in gold or its equivalent." 

Now, I desire not to be misunderstood on this question. I stand firmly by 
the public credit. I am in favor of paying the last obligation of the United 
States in strict compliance with the contract. In other words, I am for the 
strictest good faith in the payment of the public debt as a whole and in ev- 
ery part. But I am not in favor of giving large gratuities to the public cred- 
itor at the expense of the people of the United States. In my opinion gold 
and silver of the legal standard with the present ratio of equivalence in this 
country is a safe and a proper currency to be used by this Government and 
by the people of this country in the payment of every debt of every charac- 
ter. And I am in favor of maintaining such a currency, and of applying it 
alike to all the creditors and all the people of the United States. 1 am op- 
posed to the contraction of our greenback currency, and I would reissue them 
in payment by the Government when redeemed. But I am in favor of re- 
deeming the greenbacks whenever they are presented by the creditor at par, 
in gold and silver of the old standard, just as I would pay the bondholder at 
par in the same currency. In other words, I am opposed to one cuirency 
for the bondholders and another for the people who hold greenbacks or have 
other obligations of the United States. I know the public debt is sacred and 
the claims of the bondholder are of as high character as the claims of any 
other creditor of the Government; but they are of no higher dignity. 

Let us examine this question for a moment. During the late civil war 
there was, I believe, no period after the first few months of its existence 
when greenbacks were at par with gold and silver. There was a time, how- 
ever, when the irresistible gallantry and splendid successes of the Confeder- 
ate troops caused the gravest apprehension in the minds of the ablest states- 
men controlling the Federal Government, as well as in the minds of the 
43 



674 APPENDIX. 

mass of the people of the United States, whether it was possible to suppress 
what is known as the " rebellion," and restore the Government. These 
doubts at once produced their effect upon the public credit, and a period was 
reached where one dollar in gold or silver coin was worth about two and a 
half ill greenbacks. At this sta^re the Government was buying immense sup- 
plies of ordnance, camp equipage, clothing, provisions and other articles for 
the army ; and it paid out vast amounts in Treasury notes, usually called 
greenbacks, in the purchase of these necessary supplies; and these notes or 
obligations were issued at par, notwithstanding their then depreciated 
value. 

To illustrate: a farmer in Ohio possessed one hundred bushels of corn. 
The Government needed it. It was worth in the market forty cents per 
bushel in gold or silver. In greenbacks, at 2^ for 1, it was worth $100. 
The farmer sold it to the commissary for $100 in greenbacks, which he held 
until a later period, when, under the act of Congress passed April 12, 1866, 
he converted those greenbacks at par into a bond of the United States draw- 
ing 6 p3r cent, interest. 

Now I do not deny that this was a legitimate transaction. The farmer had 
a right to sell his corn for the use of the army at its market value and take 
payment in greenbacks, in their then state of depreciation; and when the 
act of Congress authorized the funding of those greenbacks in the bonds of 
the United States he had a right to avail himself of the provisions of the act; 
and by his good fortune he became the holder of a bond of the Government, 
payable in gold or silver coin, for an amount that was two and a half times 
the value in specie of iiis corn when he sold it to the Government. 

But having become a legal creditor of the Government, the holder of one 
of its bonds for $100 for one hundred bushels of corn that were worth in the 
market at the time he sold it but $40 in the same coin which he is to receive 
in payment for his bond, he is neither in equity nor justice a legal creditor 
of higher dignity than any other legal creditor of the Government. And 
there was no very substantial reason why there should have been one cur- 
rency established by law for his benefit and another for the benefit of a 
holder of another class of the obligations of the Government. Congress care- 
fuJly provided, however, that the interest on his debt and the debt itself 
when due should be paid in gold or silver coin, while other creditors were 
compelled to take payment in greenbacks. To carry out this arrangement 
the Government refused to receive its own Treasury notes in payment of 
custom-house dues upon imports, but compelled such payments to be made 
in coin ; and that coin, or a sufficient quantity of it to meet the demand, was 
set apart for the payment of the coupons of the bondholder and for the pay- 
ment of the bond at its maturity, while other creditors of the Government 
of other classes were compelled by law to receive the depreciated greenbacks 
in payment of their demands, and the people were compelled to receive them 
of each other in payment of debts due from man to man. 

The bondholders became a large and very influential class, and they seem 
to have been the peculiar favorites of the Government ; and in 1873 an act 
was passed, as already stated, demonetizing the silver coin, in which the 
Ohio farmer above mentioned, at the option of the Government, had agreed 
to take payment of his bond, and which every other bondholder had by con- 
tract agreed to receive in payment, and gold by that act being made the only 
legal tender coin of the United States the farmer became entitled to receive 
while the act was in force in gold coin payment of the one-hundred-dollar 
bond which he had received for one hundred bushels of corn worth forty 
cents a bushel in gold or silver at the time he sold it. This act demonetizing 
silver and making gold the only legal tender in payment of debts over $o was 



APPENDIX. 675 

followed by a contraction of the currency. This was followed, in Septem- 
ber, 1873, by the great commercial crash, and the contraction went on, and 
the price of property went down, down, until the farmer with the gold re- 
ceived for his coupons could buy produce in the market for a little over half 
its value at the time he converted his greenbacks into a bond. The same 
rule which applied in case of the farmer, with his one-hundred-dollar bond, 
applied in case of every other bondholder. Silver, in which the Government 
had a right by the contract to pay all the bonds, bad been demonetized; the 
commercial crash had followed ; the price of everything had become greatly 
depreciated ; gold would buy in the market a much larger amount of prop- 
erty than it would have purchased before the demonetization of silver and 
before the crash. The bondholders got the benefit of this extraordinary 
state of things; the people were the sufferers. It certainly cannot be said, 
then, that the United States Government has dealt otherwise than liberally 
with the bondholders. 

I make no further point upon the past. I simply recite what I understand 
to be the history of this matter. But I say most emphatically that 1 am un- 
willing in future that there should be one currency for the bondholder and 
another and a different currency for the satisfaction of other claims against 
the Government, and for a medium of exchange for the whole mass of the 
people of this country. In other words, I would have the Government 
purchase the bullion with gold and silver certificates when offered for sale, 
and I would compel the coinage at the mints of the United States, for just 
compensation, of all the gold and all the silver produced in this country that 
may be tendered for coinage, at the present ratio of 1 to 16, till the other 
commercial powers have agreed, as I believe they will do at no distant date, 
upon the ratio of 1 in gold to 15^ in silver. And I would make that gold 
and silver coin a legal tender in payment of all debts to all creditors of every 
class, public or private, and in all transactions among the people of the 
United States. 

The act of 1870 makes the bonds payable in coin of the then standard 
value, which included both gold and silver. Subsequent acts for the issue of 
bonds provide that they shall be paid in coin of the standard value of 1870. 
This being inserted carefully in the face of the bonds, every holder is put on 
notice when he receives the bond that it is payable in gold or silver coin of 
the standard of 1870 at the option of the Government. That is, each holder 
contracts to receive payment in gold coin of 25.8 grains of standard gold to 
the dollar, or 412^ grains of standard silver to the dollar. The Government, 
by the act of 1873, suspended the coinage of the silver dollar of this standard, 
and for the time suspended its legal-tender quality. Afterwards, before the 
bonds of the present holders came due, it resumed the coinage of the silver 
dollar of 412-^ grains, and restored its legal-tender quality. 

Now the Secretary of the Treasury argues that this temporary suspension 
of the issue of the silver dollar as a legal tender gave the bondholder the 
right in equity to demand payment in gold coin alone. In other words, that it 
gives him a right in equity to refuse to accept in payment silver coin of the 
exact description stipulated for in the contiact, because there was a period 
between the date of his bond and its maturity when the Government did not 
issue legal-tender silver dollars of the description mentioned in the bond. 

Now 1 deny that the bondholder has any such equity. He contracted to 
take coin in standai'd silver dollars of 412^ grains. When the bond, is due 
he is entitled to receive silver dollars of the standard of 1870, or gold dollars, 
at the option of the Government. And it is too clear foi' argument that this 
is the full measure of his rights and equities under the contract. It does 
not matter whether the Government coined or possessed a- silver or a gold' 



676 APPENDIX. 

dollar during the period the bond had to run. If it has the coin of the 
standard of 1870, and tenders it to him in payment, at the maturity of each 
coupon and at the maturity of each bond he gets the full measure of his 
rights in law, equity, and justice, and he has no right to demand or receive 
anything moi'e. And the Government can give him no more without fla- 
grant injustice to its tax-payers. 

The Secretary of the Treasury says the Government is able to pay the 
bonds in gold. That is true. The people of this country are able to pay, 
■within a reasonable time, the bonds in gold, with 50 per cent, added. They 
are able to make a present to each bondholder of 50 per cent, on the amount 
of his bond. But upon what principle of equity, justice, or common honesty 
can he demand it? I protest against all such gratuities to the bondholders 
and injustice to the people. 

Having thus frankly stated my position on this question, I must be per- 
mitted further to express my regrets that the Secretary of the Treasury, in 
his annual report, and the Tresideut, in his message, have thought proper to 
recommend still further restriction on the coinage of silver and the with- 
drawal of the silver certificates from circulation. To contract still further, 
or to dit^continue for months or years, as the Secretary recommends, the 
coinage of silver, the production of our own mines, seems to me to be great 
injustice to one of the important industries of this country. But this is not 
the worst. It is an act of gross injustice to all tlie laboring ma^^ses, no mat- 
ter in what branch of industry they may be engaged. It amounts to a con- 
traction of the currency of the country, a destruction of part of the circulating 
medium, which, must result in the depreciation of the value of the property 
of the people, the stagnation of business, the obstruction of enterprise, the 
reduction of the price of labor, and the sacrifice of the property of the debtor 
class to satisfy the claims of the creditor at a price far bf low its value when 
the indebtedness was created. And all for what? In plain English, that 
the rich may be made richer and the poor poorer. 

What is the circulation it is proposed to retire ? It is $66,000,000 of silver 
certificates. What are these certificates? Each is in substance a certificate 
that there is in the Treasury of the United States the number of legal-tender 
pilver dollars mentioned on its face, which belong to the bearer. It is no in- 
flated paper currency. Each dollar of it is predicated upon a dollar of the 
legal coin of the United States, held by the Government, payable to the 
owner on demand. 

One of the chief objections made to silver coin by it opponents was that it 
is bulky, heavy, and inconvenient to handle, transport, or count in making 
payments. So is gold coin in a less degree. But this difficulty is met and 
overcome at once, in case of both metals, by the use of the silver or gold 
certificate. Instead of transporting the coin from place to place, to be used 
in settlements or other transactions, the gold and silver coin is deposited in 
a vault in the Treasury, that is perfectly burglar-proof, in charge of the 
proper officers and under the necessary guard; and, instead of sending out 
ten silver dollars or ten gold dollars, the Treasurer issues a certificate which 
represents the ten dollars in either coin, which contains the pledge of the 
faith of the Government that the ten dollars in coin wiiioh the certificate 
represents is in the Treasury, payable to the bearer on demand. This cer- 
tificate, in the shape of a Treasury note, is transported and used in payment 
with all the ease and facility of a bank bill. The same rule which applies in 
case of the ten dollars applies equally to ten millions or a billion of dollars ; 
the coin lies in the Treasury, and the certificates which represent it go into 
circulation as money in its place. Not a dollar of certificate is issued with- 
out a dollar in specie in the Treasury which it represents. 



APPENDIX. 677 

This, in my opinion, is the soundest and most reliable currency that can 
be used by the Government. It is not subject to any of the objections which 
apply to the old banking system, where the bank was authorized to issue 
three dollars in bills for each dollar in specie. The Government issues its 
certificates dollar for dollar with the coin in the Treasury. What better cur- 
rency could any people desire ? What sounder currency did any pef)ple ever 
possess? It meets fully the objection made to coin on account of its being 
inconvenient to handle, and substitutes in the place of coin its representative 
in paper, which is convenient to handle. The representative is only equal in 
amount to the coin represented. The depreciation of the representative ia 
impossible, because a dollar in legal-tender coin lies in the Treasury ever 
ready to meet the demand of the holder. 

There is a large wear, and consequent loss, in the handling of the coin, 
whether gold or silver, while it passes from place to place, and from hand to 
hand in payment. But if it is laid up securely in the vault of the Treasury, 
and its representative in paper passes from place to place and from hand to 
hand in its stead, there is no wear of the coin, and no loss or depreciation on 
that score. 

It is true the silver certificate, or the gold certificate, issued may be lost 
upon the ocean, or burnt in a house, or otherwise destroyed, so ihat the 
holder loses it just as he loses a bank bilL But he takes this risk for the 
convenience of the circulation, just as he takes it in case of the bills of a 
bank. In the case of the lost certificate, the Government, representinyj the 
whole people of the United States, holds the coin represented by the lost cer- 
tificate as the money of the people, when the certificate cannot be identified 
and established. In case of a bank bill the owner loses the amount jast as 
he would lose it in ca'^e of the gold or silver certificate. In every view of it, 
therefore, the silver certificate and the gold certificate would be a better cur- 
rency for the peo[)le of the United States than the currency now in use in 
the shape of bank bills. 

I refei' in this connection to the bills of banks, because the President and 
the Secretary of the Treasury, in recommending the withdrawal of the silver 
certificates, propose that the banks issue their bills to take the place of the 
certificates in the circulation of the country. Why should we withdraw the 
silver certificates to make room for bank bills? When withdrawn, if the 
bankers, who are generally large capitalists, should determine that it is their 
interest to contract the currency, and not issue other bills in lieu of the silver 
certificates withdrawn from circulation, they would have the power to make 
a contraction of fifty millions or more in the present»volume of the currency, 
and there is no law to control it. It is not proposed, as I understand it, to 
compel the banks to issue other bills to take the place of the silver certifi- 
cates withdrawn, but it is proposed to leave them under our banking laws 
with the privilege of issuing their bills in lieu of certificates. In other 
words, if the policy of the President and the Secretary of the Treasury is 
carried out, we exchange a better currency for a worse one in this, that 
the silver certificate is always redeemable promptly on delivery at the 
Treasury, in legal-tender dollars, while the bank bill, in case of a failure of 
the bank, though secure, is not so prom|)tly redeemed. True, the Govern- 
ment in the end provides for the redemption of national-bank bills. But 
why have this cumbrous machinery? Why prefer to authorize the banks to 
issue bills for the payment of which they give the Goverimient security, 
rather than authorize the issue by the Government of its certificates, which 
represent gold or silver lying in the vault of the Treasury ? 

I say nothing in reference to our banking system. That is a question I 
do not purpose at present to consider. But I do say I would never consent 



678 APPENDIX. 

to the withdrawal of the silver certificates or gold certificates, of the kind 
above mentioned, to make room for the circulation of bank bills. I would 
never do the people the injustice to take from them the legitimate profits of 
such a circulation that I might give those profits to corporations, capitalists, 
or organized monopolists. And why risk the contraction of the currency by 
withdrawing gold and silver from circulation by their legitimate representa- 
tives, leaving it in the hands of the bankers to expand or contract at their 
will or as their interest may dictate? 

Such a policy may serve the interest of the few who have large wealth and 
enable them greatly to increase their accumulations, but it can never benefit 
the laboring masses of our people, the hardy sons of toil, who earn their 
bread by the sweat of the brow ; and after all, whether in the field of pro- 
duction, the harvest-field, or the field of battle, they are the bone and sinew 
and muscle and nerve of society. 

The middle classes and laboring men of our country are always most pros- 
perous when every branch of industry is flourishing. When trade is active 
our villages, towns, and cities are building up. When the products of our 
factories and mines are in active demand ; when new railroads are being con- 
structed, new boats put upon our rivers, and new lines of steamers upon the 
ocean; when our machine-shops are kept busy to make and repair motive 
power and other means of transportation, then the engineer, the machinist, 
the mechanic, and the artisan find ready demand for their labor at good 
prices, and the farmer and planter remunerative and liberal prices for their 
productions. This state of things can never exist while the capitalists of the 
country, backed by the Government, pursue the policy of contracting the 
currency founded upon a specie basis, which contraction drives new enter- 
prises from the field, destroys the demand for labor, reduces the value of 
property, and produces distrust, depression and bankruptcy. 



Speech of Hox. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, ox the Mohmon Ques- 
tion, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the 
IfJTH Day of February, 1882. 

On the bill (S. No. 353) to amend section 5352 of the Revised Statutes of the United 
States, in reference to bigamy, and for otlier purposes. 

Mr. Brown said: 

Mr. President: I am very well aware that there is great popular clamor 
for the passage of this TdIII or some very rigorous and severe bill for the sup- 
pression of Mormonism. I do not wish my position to be misunderstood in 
reference to that institution. I am no advocate of polygamy. I deprecate 
and denounce it as one of the greatest of social evils. I do not believe it 
should be practiced anywhere. I am ready to unite in imposing such penal- 
ties as we can constitutionally impose within the United States upon those 
who do practice it, because of its immorality. And yet I am obliged to 
admit, and we are all obliged to admit, that it is practiced, and popular 
sentiment sustains it among three-fourths of the whole population of the 
globe. 

England has had this same question to deal with. When she assumed the 
dominion of India she found polygamy there, and it has been there from 
time immemorial. They did not do what popular sentiment seeks to compel 
us now to do. The English people did not attempt to crush it out by law, 
but the British Parliament and the British courts recognized it in India 
on assuming control and recognize it to-day. Indeed they dare not do othex*- 



APPENDIX. 679 

wise. They can enforce no law in India that proposes to exterminate polyg- 
amy. 

On that subject I propose to read a paragraph from Allen's India, a book 
whicli I now hold in my hand. On page 551 I find this language : 

" Polygamy is practiced in India among the Hindus, the Mohammedans, 
the Zoroastrians and the Jews. It is allowed and recognized by the insti- 
tutes of Menu, by the Koran, by the Zendavesta, and the Jews believe by 
their Scriptures — the Old Testament. It is recognized by all the courts in 
India — native and English. The laws of the British Parliament recognize 
polygamy among all these classes, when the marriage connection has been 
formed according to the principles of their religion and to their established 
laws and usages. The marriage of a Hindu or a Mohammedan with his 
second or his third wife is just as valid, and as legally binding on all parties, 
as his marriage with his first wife ; just as valid as the mai'riage of any Chris- 
tian in the Church of England." 

Mr. Edmunds. ^lay I ask the senator if the same book contains a state- 
ment of the laws of Thibet, where one woman may lawfully marry several 
husbands, and all of them be bound to the marital relation ? 

Mr. Brown. I am not able to answer that, for I have not read all the 
book. A senator handed it to me this morning, but I have not had the op- 
portunity to peruse it except sufficiently for my purpose on the point above 
mentioned. 1 will say to the senator from Vermont, however, that the Eng- 
lish Government has recognized polygamy in India by her courts and by her 
Parliament, and she recognizes it to-dny. I say I deprecate the institution, 
and I am ready to do everything I can constitutionally and legally do to 
exterminate it where we have the power; but we cannot shut our eyes to the 
fact that it exists, as already stated, among the greater portion of the popu- 
lation of the whole globe. 

Not only do the British Parliament and the British courts recognize it, but 
the missionaries of all Christian churches in India recognize it, and do not 
attempt to overthrow it where the marriage has already been solemnized. I 
will read from the same book, Allen's India, page 601 : 

"The Calcutta missionary conference, consisting of the missionaries of the 
different societies which have missionaries in that city and its vicinity, after 
frequent consultations and much consideration on thesubjectof polygamy as it 
exists in India, were unanimous in the following opinions: 

" 1. It is in accordance with the spirit of the Bible and the practice of the 
Protestant church to consider the state as the proper fountain of legisla- 
tion in all civil questions afi"ecting marriage and divorce. 

"2. The Bible being the true standard of morals, ought to be consulted 
in everything which it contains on the subject of marriage and divorce, and 
nothing deternnned contrary to its general principles. 

"3. Married persons, being both Christians, should not be divorced for 
any other cause than adultery. But if one of the parties be an unbeliever, 
and though not an adulterer, wilfully depart from and desert the other, a di- 
vorce may be properly sued for. They were of the opinion, however, that 
such liberty is allowable only in extreme cases, and where all known means 
of reconciliation after a trial of not less than one year have failed. 

"4. Heathen and Mohammedan marriages and divorces, recognized by 
the laws of the country, are to be held valid. But it is strongly recommended 
that if eitiier party before conversion have put away the other on slight 
ground, the divorced party should in all practicable and desirable cases be 
taken back again. 

" 5. If a convert before becoming a Christian has married more wives 
than one, in accordance with the practice of the Jewish and primitive Chris- 



680 APPENDIX. 

tian churclies, he shall be permitted to keep them all ; but such a person is 
not eligible to any office in the church. lu no other case is polygamy to be 
tolerated among Christians." 

Tlius it appears that the conference of the missionaries of the Christian 
churches in Calcutta recognizes this institution. They do not permit their 
members in the future, or alter their conversion and their connection with 
the church, to marry more than one wife; but they do not attempt to dis- 
solve marriages in existence at the time of the conversion, but they hold that 
a mun who becomes a Christian, who has more than one wife at the time, is 
to continue to cohabit with his wives. I presume this arises out of the very 
necessity of the case, as polygamy is so firmly established in those countries 
that it would be impossible to plant Christianity there without recognizing 
the existing institutions of the country, at least so far as the family relations 
of the convert are concerned at the time of his union with the church. 

Again, it cannot be denied that polygamy was tolerated by the Old Testa- 
ment, and many persons believe it is not prohibited by the New, except in case 
of a bishop, or a deacon, who it is said shall be the husband of one wife. Some 
reason subtly on that by saying that we should apply to it the Latin maxim, 
expressio unius est exclusio alterius, and they say the fact that the expression 
that the deacon or the bishop shall be the husband of one wife only, carries 
with it the implication that others may have more than one. I think this is 
a very far-fetched and strained construction ; I do not agree with it. for the 
whole teachings of the New Testament, it seems to me, are very clear and 
positive that the husband shall have but one wife. I remember no instance 
where husband and wife are mentioned in the New Testament where any- 
thing is said about more than one wile, and while there is no positive inhi- 
bition, except in the instance mentioned of officers of the churches, it is very 
clearly to be inferred that polygamy was not intended from the fact that there 
is no instance of more than one wife mentioned as connected witli any one 
man, or that any man is justified in having more than one. But there are 
those, I say, who entertain a different opinion on this subject, and they 
must have their opinion. I have no right to fly in their teeth about it. 

But, Mr. President, there are those in the Mormon territory who believe 
that there is a divine revelation later than the New Testament which author- 
izes a member or the Mormon Chuich to have more wives than one. They 
believe in the revelation, as they term it, made by God himselFto their pro- 
phet, Joseph Smith. 1 do not believe in it, but they religiously believe it. 
Many of them are as earnest and honest in their faith as I am in the Baptist 
faith, or as other senators are in the Methodist or Presbyterian faiih. I think 
they are greatly in error ; but I have no more right, if they do not practice 
it, to disfranchise them on account of that belief than I have to disfranchise 
any senator in this chamber or any man out of it who believes that the New 
Testament does not forbid polygamy. 

Mr. Edmunds. May I suggest to the senator that there is nothing what- 
ever in this bill that disfranchises any man or woman on account of any 
opinion or belief he or she may have ? 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, I assert that there is. I take issue squarely 
with the senator from Vermont. 

Mr. Edmunds. Will the senator kindly point it out? 

Mr. Brown. I will. I find in section seven of this bill this language: 

" That no polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with moi e than 
one woman, and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons described as 
aforesaid in this section, in any Territory or other place over which the United 
States have exclusive jurisdiction, shall be entitled to vote at any election 
held in any such Territory or other place, or be eligible for election or appoint- 



APPENDIX. 681 

ment to or be entitled to hold any office or place of public trust, honor, or 
emolument in, under, or for any such Territory or place, or under the United 
States." 

Now to the first part of the section again : 

"No polyjjainist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with more than one 
woman, * * * shall be entitled to vote." 

Who is a polygamist? I hold in my hand Webster's Unabridged Diction- 
ary, which is very good authority, I believe : 

" Polygamist : a person who practices polygamy, or maintains its lawfulnfiss," 

There is scarcely a man, woman, or child in Utah belonging to the Mormon 
church who does not maintain the lawfulness of polygamy. 

Mr. Edmunds. The senator is mistaken about that, but that is not any 
part of the argument. 

Mr. Jiiown. There may be a few — 

Mr. Edmunds. Tliere may be a great number, and there are. 

Mr. IJrown. There are very few, if any, who doubt it. 

Mr. Edmunds. I can tell you just how many there are, in a minute. 

Mr. lirown. I will thauk the senator. I suppose there are some in every 
country connected with every faith who do not believe in all that their par- 
ticular church or sect holds. I have been among the Mormons, however ; I 
have seen something of t heir society ; and I know the great prevailing opinion 
there is that God by a divine revelation made known to the prophet, Joseph 
Smith, that a man in the Mormon church may have more than one wife, 
that he may practice polygamy. Only a small number of them do practice 
it, I admit; but it is almost, if not quite, the universal belief that they have 
the right to do it. 

Mr. Edmunds. Of course we cannot have a judicial trial to-day to find out, 
as my brother from Alabama wishes to do on this political question, how the 
fact is; but according to the returns obtained by the census people (not 
always under the act of Congress, because they go beyond that) of what are 
called a|>i»st;ite Mormons, who do not hold up to the polygamy doctrine, there 
are (j.988 in the Territory, and of what are called Josephite Mormons who 
hold up to all the doctrines except that one thing — but I do not know pre- 
cisely the distinction between the Apostate and Jo-ephite Mormons — there 
are 820. So it would seem tliere are more than 7,000 of the Mormons, be- 
sides certain ones put down as doubtful whom I leave out, who do not ap- 
pear to believe in this revelation of polygamy which occurred about twenty 
or thirty years after the finding of the astonishing gold tablets and so on. 
That is the Book of the Covenant. 

Mr. Brown. I think they were brass, not gold. 

Mr. Edmunds. Perhaps they had most to do with brass. 

Mr. Brown. I do not think they were pure gold. 

Mr. Edmunds. As 1 have been reading the Book of Covenants of the 
Mormon church lately with assiduity, I think they were gold, but at any rate 
the polygamous thing came in more than twenty years after its suppo.«ed 
discovery and came in under circumstances that if my friend would read the 
very book itself to show how it came and why and so on, I think he would 
be satisfied that it would take a pretty stout-hearted man among the Mor- 
mons to think that that was of divine revelation, for it absolutely reversed 
the previous revelation from the invisible world. I did not want to interrupt 
the senator, however. 

Mr. Brown. It is no interruption. I do not presume I am as well posted 
in Mormon literature as the honorable senator from Vermont, though I have 
read some of it. I agree with him that in the commencement Mormonism 
did not tolerate or practice polygamy ; you may read the book of Mormon 



682 APPENDIX. 

and you will nowhere find in that book that polygamy is tolerated ; but the 
Mormons believe that subsequently to the discovery of that book, which the 
senatoi- says was on gold plates — I think they were brass — 

Mr. Edmunds. We will compound it and call it silver, which is a popular 
thing. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Brown. Anywhere along between. [Laughter.] They say that since 
that discovery God revealed to Joseph Smith i;uder circumstances, as the 
senator says, that do not carry conviction to my mind, though they do to theirs, 
that a man mioht have more than one wife. And now ju&t in that connection 
let us say a little more about the Mormon faith. 

As I understand the ]\Iormon doctrine and the Mormon people, they pro- 
fess to believe as firmly as we do in the Old Testament, but tliey say nmch 
of the Old Testament is repealed by the New. Then they profess to believe 
in all the New, that has not been repealed by later inspirations and revela- 
tions ; but they believe that there are certain things in the New Testament 
which have been repealed by later revelations from Heaven. I am speaking 
of tlieir faith, so far as I could learn it among them during the short stay I 
made there some two or three years since. I could hear of no one connected 
with the Mormon church who'disbelieved this doctrine. At any rate, out of 
the one hundred and forty-odd thousand population in that Territory, or con- 
nected with that church, according to the estimate of the senator fi-oin Ver- 
mont, (if that is a correct census return,) there are only about six or seven 
thousand who do not believe in polygamy. 

Mr. Edmunds. The whole population is 143,963, according to the census. 

Mr. Brown, Then it would leave 137,000 in round numbers, who do be- 
lieve in it against 6,000 who do not. 

Mr. Ednmnds. Oh no, the senator is mistaken. I only speak of the Mor- 
mon population, the total Mormon population. 

Mr. Brown. The senator is confining himself to the Territory of Utah. 
[Addressing Mr. Edmunds.] Do you not know that the Mormons have very 
strong church relations with, andhave planted colonies in, other Territories? 

Mr. P^dmunds. I do not know anything about that. I was speaking of 
Utah alone. 

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, they are as unanimous on this question as any 
church or any people anywhere are on any question. There may be some 
dissenters; doubtle.ss there are some. They maintain, in other words, the 
lairfnliies-s of polygamy. Then, according to the definition given by Web- 
ster, they are ])oiygamists ; and then, according to this bill, they are every 
one disfranchised. It is a sweeping disfranchisement of almost the entire 
people of a Territory. And in order to carry out that disfram hisement we 
must resort here to a practire better known in the South than it luis been 
in the North. Whenever it is necessary to make a Republican State out of 
a Democratic State, or a Republican State out of aDt-mocratic Ten-itory, the 
most convenient machinery for that purpose is a Returning Board, and it 
has worked admirably in the South. By fraud, perjui-y, forgery, and vil- 
lainy, the returning-board system cheated the people of these United States 
out of a legal election for President. It does not therefore specially com- 
mend itself to the American people. It stinks in the nostrils of honest ni^n. 

We propose now to deal with this question by constituting a Returning 
Board of five persons to be appointed by the President of the United States, 
with the advice and consent of the senate, all of whom, says the bill, as 
brought forth by the Committee on the Judiciary, shall not be member.s of 
the same political party. I prop*>se to amend it by saying not more than 
three of whom shall be members of the same political party, so as to compel 
the appointment of two Democrats in place of one ; and on the other side of the 



APPENDIX. 683 

chamber that proportion is stoutly met and resisted. Why is it that it is neces- 
sary to have four of the five members of this board Republicans, and only one 
Democrat? Will not a majority do this job as well as a minority ? Cannot 
three carry out the object? ]f the Democrats have two, it seems it is feared 
it rni^ht not work; and it is safer not to trust it to them, lest, to the great 
disappointment of some very patriotic gentlemen, it might turn up a Demo- 
cratic State. 

In my opinion the people of Utah have at least one good quality, and that 
is, that an overwhelming majority of them are Democrats. If we ever reach 
a point where they are to be admitted into the Union, they have a right to 
come in as a Democratic State ; but under this Returning Board legerdemain, 
it is very fair to pi'esume that they will not be permitted so to come. If not 
even two out of the five who are to manipulate the returns are to be Demo- 
erat^!, there can be but little hope of a Democratic State. And there may be 
a very good political reason just there, why the whole population, almost 
en maiise, should be disfranchised. If they are permitted to vote, theie is no 
chance for a Republican State. If a returning board manipulates the elec- 
tion, and the population of Utah, or a vast majority of them, are driven from 
the polls, then there is a prospect of a Republican State there. 

Not only does this bill as reported by the Committee on the Judiciary 
propose to disfranchise and drive from the polls almost the entire population 
of Utah, but it proposes in the very teeth of the Constitution of the United 
States to disfranchise them from the right to hold office. 

Mr. Edmunds. Will the senator from Georgia mind if in connection with 
that remark of his I should i-ead the legal definition of a bigamist and polyg- 
ainist as distinguished from his Webster definition. 

Mr. Brown. Go on, sir. 

Mr. Edmunds. Turning from the land of literature to the region of law, 
with which statutes are supposed to have something to do, I will read out of 
the first book I sent for at random — Burrill's Law l3ictionary, supposed to be 
pretty correct, this clause : 

"Bigamus. — In old English law. One who has been twice married, or 
has married more than one wife; a bigamist. Applied originally in the 
canon law, to clerks or ecclesiastical persons, who were forbidden to marry 
a second time. * * * Bigmnus is he that either hath married two or more 
wives, or that hath married a widow. " 

Under the old law a man who married a widow was a bigamist, I do not 
think under the modern law this statute would prevent a man marrying a 
widow. Now I come to what is more to the point I am speaking to : 

" A polvgamist is he who has had two or more wives at the same time. — 
3 Inst., 88. " 

So that r bog to assure my distinguished friend from Georgia that the 
Judiciary Committee thought — very likely it was mistaken after what he and 
Webster have said — that the legal definition of "bigamist" and "polygam- 
ist" was perfectly understood everywhere, not a matter of opinion, but a 
matter of fact. I thank my friend for allowing me to state this. 

Mr. Brown. I much prefer that my friend from Vermont should state all 
his points as we go along. 

Mr. Edmunds. I would not do it to interrupt the senator's remarks. 

Mr. Brown. The senator from Vermont has produced a book which de- 
fines a bigamist to be a man who lias married a widow, and a polvgamist 
a man who lias had two or more wives at the same time. He himself repu- 
diates the first detiniticm ; and the last does not embrace a man who now has 
two wives. I am certainly content if the senator is. And I am willing to 



684 APPENDIX. 

put Webster against Burrill as an authority on the definition of words, or the 
meaning of the English language. 

No matter what Burrill may say, it will be very convenient for this Re- 
publican returning hoaid, when they go to Utah, to take Webster in their 
hands and drive from the polls every voter wlio propo>es to cast a bal- 
lot, if he is a member of the Mormon Church, on the ground that he is a 
polygamist. I would not like to leave it in the handset" such a board, with 
such an authority as Webster to sustain them, to determine whether a 
Democrat who believes in the lawfulness of polygamy, though he does not 
practice it, should he entitled to vote. It would be like leaving the lamb in 
the inclosure with the wolf. There would be no prospect of his vote being 
received. 

But at the time I was interrupted by the honorable senator from Vermont 
I had stated that I would proceed to show that this bill if passed disfran- 
chises Mormons from holding office on account of tlieir religious opinions, in 
the teeth of the Constitution of the United States. I read from article 
6, section 3, of the Constitution of the United States : 

" But no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office 
or public trust under the United States. " 

It has been argued here that the Congress of the Utiited States has abso- 
lute power over the Territories and over the District of Columbia; that we 
can give to the Territories and the District such government as we think proper. 
It is outside of my purpose to controvert that ; it is not necessary that I 
should. But nothing chu give to Congress the right, in the teeth of the Con- 
stitution, to prescribe a religious test for a person living in the District or in 
the Territories that excludes him from holding office. I maijitain that that 
is just what is done in this case. I know it is said sometimes that the action 
of the Mormons in practicing polygamy is an immorality, that there is no re- 
ligion in it, and that we do not interfere with the constitutional rights of a 
Mormon when we prescribe the test that he shall not hold office if he be- 
lieves in the lawfulness of polygamy. What is a religious test? To ascer- 
tain that it is necessary to inquire what is religion? Webster defines 
it thus : 

" 1. The recognition of God as an object of worship, love, and obedience ; 
right feelings toward God as rightly apprehended ; piety. 

"2. Any system of faith and worship; as, the religion of the Turks, of 
Hindoos, of Christians; true and false relif/ion. " 

That is the definition of Webster, and I still think he is pretty good 
authority. I repeat it : 

" Any system of faith and worship ; as, the religion of the Turks, of Hin- 
doos, of Christians ; true and false religion. " 

That is Webster's definition of religion. Then, a religious test would be 
a test pertaining to religion as defined, or a law prescribing that a persou 
should not hold office because he professed or practiced a particular religion, 
no matter whether we believe it to be a true or a false religion. According to 
Webster, it would be a violation of the Constitution if you say that a man 
shall not hold office becaus^e he believes and practices the Turkish religion, 
or the Hindoo religion, (for he mentions both,) or the Christian religion. 

Mr. Edmunds. Would the senator really object to a law, supposing it 
were not unconstitutional, (which is another question,) which said that no 
man should be entitled to participate in the goverimient of the State of 
Georgia that was in the practice of having all his father's wives, one or more, 
burned, Hindoo fashion, when his father died? There is some ditterence 
between facts and faith in the minds of most people, I submit to my friend, 
and it comes down (to state the point) to this essential distinction, that all 



APPENDIX. 685 

political society has recognized between regulating political rights — and I 
may say, for tliat matter, civil rights in a large degree, but I need not go in- 
to that now — depending upon certain conditions of fact, as the supreme 
court of the United States decided in the Reynolds case on this pretense of 
its being a religious faith to have four or five wive.*, and therefore you could 
not interfere with it. It comes down to a fact. There are many men in the 
State of Vermont who believe that they have an inherent right to sell liquor 
although it is proI)ibited, that it is a natural right tiiat belongs to every man. 
The State s;iys : " If you do that thing, you cannot do certain other things," 
Is it possible that my friend from Georgia really means to maintain the 
proposition that in a Republican country, a government of the people, it does 
not belong to a maJDrity of the people to say that certain acts, certain con- 
ditions of bodily existence, shall not be made the test of participating in the 
government of that State V This is the point. You may call it religion or 
what you will. 

Mr. Brown. The senator might have saved himself a discourse of some 
length, which must be printed in my speech, if he had noticed a little more 
carefully what I was saying, or if he had waited till I was through on that 
point. I do not deny the right ofa State to punisli any sort of immorality. 

Mr. Edmunds. I arn not speaking of punishment ; I am talking about po- 
litical rights. 

Mr. Brown. I will answer the question if you will keep quiet only a short, 
time. 

Mr. Edmunds. I will keep quiet entirely. 

Mr. Brown. I do not ask that ; but when I am replying to the senator's 
long questions I pre'er to be heard myself. I do not deny the power of the 
state to inflict punishment for immorality. I am willing to vote for a law 
to punish persons, not for what they have done in the past when there was 
no law prohibiting such acts, but what they may do in the future that is 
criminal, in the Territory of Utah or any other Territory. 1 believe that 
bigamy or the double wife system, if I may so term it, is immoral ; and I am 
therefore willing to inflict penalties, or to vote for a law that does inflict them 
upon those who are legally convicted of that offense, committed after the 
passage of a law prohibiting it. But I am not willing to put it in the hands 
of returning boards, to drive from the polls in Utah every man who believes 
that he or any other man has a right to practice polvgnmy, if he does not 
practice it. I would only consent to punish him for his criminal conduct, not 
for his belief or his faith or his religious opinions. 

Again, as to the instance put by the senator from Vermont in my State, if 
it were possible for there to be such an instance there ; if any man there be- 
lieved it was right to burn his father's wives — we do not allow them to have 
but one wife there — upon the funeral pile I would inflict penalties upon him 
for practicing it : but it' he really believes it is right I liave no right to exclude 
him from holding ottice because he says he believes it. 

Mr. Edmunds, ^o say I ; so say we all, 

Mr. Brown. Then it turns out that there would have been but little rea- 
gon for the interrupti<tn by the senator, had he heard me through. 

Mr. Edmunds. I think it turns out that there was. 

Mr. Brown. That is a difference of opinion. 

Mr. Edmunds. That is liberal. 

Mr. Brown. Then I hope you are content. I say you have aright to pun- 
ish a Mormon for adultery or fornication or bigamy. I make no issue with 
you there. But you have no right to punish him for it until you have legally 
convicted him of the crime; the court having aright to inflict the penalty 
by the proper oflicens, and I shall always approve it when so done ; but I am 



686 APPENDIX. 

not ready to place a whole community under the ban because a few persons 
there practice this immoral habit. I am informed that there are compara- 
tively few Mormons who have more than one wife, yet almost the entire 
Mormon population believe it is legal for a man to have a plurality of wives. 
Let us be careful that we do not establish precedents that may lead to the 
destruction of freedom of opinion, and the subversion of constitutional 
liberty, and religious toleration in this country. 

When we come down to this matter of persecution or prosecution for 
opinion's sake and go beyond punishment for crime committed, we tread 
ujjon very dangerous ground. If we look back over the history of the past 
we have abundant evidence to justify this assertion. The time was when 
the Catholic Church tolerated no dissenters and punished in an exemplary 
manner those who denied the infallibility of the Pope and the authority of 
the church. That day has passed, at least it is so in this country, and to 
their honor be it said, to the Catholics and Baptists of the United (States the 
glory is due of having been the first two denominations — the Baptists a little 
in the lead — to establish on this continent full, unqnalitied religious freedom. 
But even then differences of opinion could not be tolerated by those in 
power, and the early settlers of New England, who held another faith, perse- 
cuted both Baptists and Catholics alike tor dissenting from their view! Such 
is the weakness of human nature ; such is the danger of persecution for 
opinion's sake. 

Mr. Edmunds. I wish you would leave out the State of Vermont when 
you speak of New England, because it is not true as to it, but the reverse. 

Mr. Brown. I said New England, and I was right; but I am very willing 
to except the State of Vermont, as requested by the senator. No instance 
at this time occurs to me in relation to that State. 1 believe the senator is 
right in asking that she be exempted. I wish I could say as much for all 
the other States of New England, and for all the States of the world. I am 
not mentioning this to be offensive to New P^ngland, but I mention it to 
warn senators of the dangers of a spirit of religious persecution, and to ask 
them also to reflect on the danger of political persecution for opinion's sake. 
The dominant church in New England at the early settlement persecuted 
the Catholics and the Baptists. The historian says they made acquiescence 
in their own church practices and beliefs a test of citizenship. (2 Elliott's 
History of New England, page 206.) The Quakers were whipped at the 
cart tail from town to town, because they practiced their own religious 
opinions. Men and women were hung because they were convicted by New 
England tribunals of being witches. The Baptists were taxed for a long 
period to support the clergy of the established denomination there ; and 
Roger Williams, their great leader, was banished from Massachusetts on 
account of his religious opinions. Quakers were driven out of New England 
under a severe penalty if they returned. And one unfortunate man was 
banished under penalty of death if he returned, for asserting that he was 
free from original sin, and had not committed a sin in six months. This 
was the intolerance in a past century. 

I have referred to the Catholics. Coming down still later within the 
present century, within the present half century, it has not been fitty years 
ago that the Catholic Church established at Charlestown, in Massachusetts, 
an Ursuline convent or college, and it was so offensive to the good people of 
that State that a mob was raised to burn it, and it was burnt under circum- 
stances of the txtmost aggravation. Helpless women were driven out of it. 
They fled to save their lives, and the death of one or two and the insanity 
of another resulted. The attornej'-general, in summing up the enoi niity of 
the crime to the jury, uses the following language : "A murder thus crowned 



APPENDIX. 687 

the perpetration of burglary, incendiarism, sacrilege, and plunder." (For a 
full account of this great outrage see tiflh volume of Bishop England's 
Works.) So strong was religious intolerance then, that that good old State, 
which usually punishes crimes exeniplarily, was unable to punish the perpe- 
trators of this oHense. A former penitentiary convict was tlie leader of the 
mob, and he was put upon trial for it. The jury acqiutted him under cir- 
cumstances the most extraordinary, and the verdict was loudly applauded by 
the populace. Handbills had been stuck upon the bridge crossing the river, 
threatening the assassination of any one who gave information in reference 
to the deed. 

Tliat WHS forty-eight j^ears ago. If religious intolerance in this most 
enlightened and intt-lligent State was so great forty-eight years ago as to 
incite men to burn and desecrate the convents of the Catholic Church, and 
the riot was permitted with impunity, how can we trust ourselves forty-eight 
years later to make indiscriminate warfare upon the people of any territory 
of these United States on account of any opinion of theirs, religious or other- 
wise ? It is a dangerous experiment. Enact your laws to punish crime; I 
will vote with you. Make your penalties as severe as you will; wlien the 
culprit lias been convicted I will say let him sutler; but do not proscribe a 
whole community because they diflier with us in opinion. 

Even in the old State of Connecticut, in the year 1834, in Windham 
County, a Miss Crandall opened a school for young colored girls, and the 
indignation of the people grew so high that they determined to break it up. 
They went to the Legislature and got an act passed on the subject; they 
carried it to the judiciary; they resorted to every means possible to suppress 
it legally; but failing, tiiey took their iron crowbars, after it had been once 
set on tire, and went and broke out the windows of the house and drove the 
teacher away, as they could not bear the outrage of a school there to teach 
young colored girls. (See Larned's History of Windham County.) 

Mr. Hoar. How was it in Georgia? 

Mr. Brown. Georgia may have done wrong in some instances, but I am 
not now defending her wrongs; 1 am speaking of the danger of yielding to 
these popular clamors and proscribing or putting down people because we 
differ with them in opinion. Connecticut would not now do wiiat she then 
did. She now stands by the rights of colored people, and, to their honor be 
it said, 1 believe both her senators favor appropriations to educate the colored 
people everywhere in the United State;-, I thank them for it; it is right; 
but I mention the instance not to reflect on the people of Contiecticut, but 
to show the danger of yielding to popular clamor, where any institution does 
not meet with popular favor. 

In 1855 this country was convulsed with one of the bitterest political cam- 
paigns we have ever had, the cornerstone of the platform of one of the 
political paitu^s being that Catholics should not hold office, and proscribing 
them for opinion's sake. It was said that tiie Catholic believed in the infal- 
hbility of the I'ope, and believing this lie could not be a true citizen of any 
civil government; that his primary allHi^iance was due to the Pope, and 
therefore he could not be trusted with office. This erroneous opinion found 
followers l>y the thousands and hundreds of thousands in the United States 
at that time. 

Let me give another illustration. It is only within the last few years, if 
I am correctly iirformed, that the constitution of New Hampshire permits a 
Cattiolic to be a memf)er of the Legislature of that State. 

Mr. Blair. I should like to coirect the senator to a certain extent in 
regard to a popular impression that Catholics have not been permitted to 
hold office in the State of New Hampshire until a very recent alteration in 



688 APPENDIX. 

the constitution. The matter of the religious test did survive nominally in 
our constitution until its last change, some three years since ; but as a matter 
of fact the provision was obsolete. I think it must have been obsolete for 
the last iialf century. Nearly twenty years ago 1 myself sat side by side in 
the Legislature of 'New Hampshire with an Irish Catholic who represented 
the city of Mancliester. It was an obsolete provision ; and our people, who 
have been very conservative in regard to holding conventions for the purpose 
of altering their fundamental law, allowed it to remain, knowing that it was 
not acted upon, until at last it becoming necessary to modify the constitution 
in other particulars, this provision was changed with the rest. 

Mr. Brown. The senator was right when he asked to correct me to a 
"certain extent" only. According to his own statement he sat in the Legis- 
lature of his own State by the side of a Catholic, who sat there in open vio- 
lation of the constituaon of New Hampshire. 

1 have no disposition to misrepresent New Hampshire, but the senator's 
statement does not much better the case. He admits that until three years 
ago if a Catholic occupied a seat in the Legislature of New Hampshire he 
had to do it in violation of the constitution of New Hampshire, which I pre- 
sume each member was sworn to support. Popular opinion did not enforce 
the constitution, the senator says, but still the constitution forbade that a 
Catliolic be a member. 1 am glad it does not now forbid it. 

While 1 think we are becoming more liberal as members of the different 
churches, and as citizens of States, I fear yet to trust too much to excited 
legislation under the lash of popular clamor. 

A few years ago in my own State we all stood by slavery. No one then 
questioned that it was right. That the institution may in some cases have 
been abused, as every institution is abused, cannot be denied; but it was as 
little abused as any other could be. Slavery has been abolished : none of us 
desire to restore it. We stand now by the liberty and the rights of the 
former slave. Still tht-re is an incident that I cannot help remembering 
during that transition stage. After the end of the war the reconstruction 
measures were passed. I had then a little taste of the rule that we now pro- 
pose to apply to Utali. I stood by the polls, disfranchised and not permitted 
to vote, while my former slaves, emancipated, walked up and deposited their 
ballots. I made no issue. I accepted it. Why? Because 1 had no power 
to do anything; and I held that Georgia had seceded from the Union, and 
having seceded, and having been conquered, the conquering power had the 
right to dictate the terms. But the Mormons have not seceded from the 
Union. The Federal authorities might in my case possibly have made a 
religions test, and said that I should not hold any office because of my opin- 
ions. If my theory was right they could, because 1 believed we were out of 
the Union when we passed the ordinance of secession. But if their theory 
was correct, they had no right to prescribe such a religious test. I did not, 
however, make any point about the political test, because I believed we were 
obliged to acquiesce in the dictates of the conqueror. I mention these mat- 
ters, not to stir up unkind feelings, but because they are part of the history, 
and point the danger of legislation of the character we are now proposing to 
apply to Utah. 

This bill proposes to apply a religious test to the Mormons. I do not 
mean the part of it that would punish them for immorality, but in so far as 
it punishes the Mormon for his religious opinions it is a religious test applied. 
He believes that Joe Smith was a prophet as much as I believe that Jeremiah 
was a prophet; and while I think he is in an egregious error, I have no right 
to proscribe him because of his belief as long as he does not practice immo- 
rality. And I have no right to do more as a legislator than to prescribe rules 



APPENDIX. 689 

to punish him for his immoralities and leave him to the full enjoyment of 
his religious opinions, just as I claim the right to enjoy my own opinions. 
If we commence striking down any sect, however despitsed, or however un- 
popular, on account of opinion's sake, we do not know how soon tlie fires of 
Siiiitiitiuld may be rekindled or the gallows of New England for witches 
again be erected, or when another Catholic convent will be burned down. 

Mr. Edmunds. Or another colored school burned down. 

Mr. Brown. Yes, I accept the amendment. As the senator from Vermont 
say^, "or another colored school burned down," I trust it may not be. We 
do not know how long it will be before the clamor will be raised by the 
religious denominations of this country that no member of a cliurch who 
holds tht' infallibility of the Pope or the doctrine of transubstantiation should 
hold office or vote. We do not know how long it may be before it would be 
said that no member of a church who believes in close communion and 
baptism by immersion as the only mode should vote or hold office in this 
country. You are treading on dangerous ground when you open this flood- 
gate anew. We have passed the period where there is for the present any 
clamor against any particular sect except as against the Mormons ; but it 
seems there must be some periodical outcry against some denomination. 
Popular vengeance is now turned against the Mormons. When we are done 
with them I know not who will next be considei'ed the proper subject of it. 

Mr. President, I believe I have made about nil the remarks that I care to 
make on this subject. In conclusion. I have to state that I cannot vote for 
the bill in its present shape. I cannot vote for any bill that will leave it 
with any Returning Board in Utah, with the pretext that they will have in 
this case, to proscribe any class of people thei-e on account of their political 
or religious opinions. 1 am ready to vote for any bill that is necessary to 
punish tlie people of that Territory or any other for the practice of immoral- 
ity, leaving it to the courts to decide whether they are guilty or not. 

I therefore insi^t upon the amendment that I have alre;idy introduced. I 
was not in at the moment when the senator from Missouri []\Ir. Vest] 
offered his amendment. I wish to oifer two amendments more. Before I 
take my seat I will read them for information. In section 7 — 

Mr. Edmunds. Y'ou mean section 7 as it is in the print? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir, as it is in print. 

Mr. Edmunds. That would be now section 8. 

Mr. Brown. In section 7 [8], line 1, after the word "bigamist," I shall 
move to insert the words "who has been legally convicted of practicing tlie 
same ; " and after the word " woman " in line 2 to insert " and legally con- 
victed of the same ; " and after the word " section " in line 4 to insert '• who 
has been legally convicted;" so that that part of the section would read : 

" That no polygamist, bigamist, who has been legally convicted of prac- 
ticing the same, or any person cohabiting with more than one woman, and 
legally convicted of the same, and no woman cohabiting with any of the 
persons described as aforesaid in this section, who has been legally convicted, 
in any Territory," &c. 

With those amendments, and one other which I shall prepare, much of the 
objection that I have to the bill would be removed, though I think there are 
other very serious objections to it. 

Upon a vote by yeas and nays Mr. Brown's amendment making it the 
duty of the President to appoint three of one party and two of the other, so 
as to give the Democrats two members of the board of five, was adopted by 
a majority of 2. 

Mr. Brown then offered the following amendment, which was adopted: 

"Prooideil, That said board of five persons shall not exclude any person, 
44 



690 APPENDIX, 

otherwise eligible to vote, from the polls on account of any opinion such 
person may entertain on the subject of bigamy or polygamy; nor shall they 
refuse to count any such vote on account of the opinion of the person casting 
it on the subject of bigamy and polygamy." 



Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, Delivered in the 
Senate of the United States, March 6, 1882, on Bill (S. No. 
71) TO Enfohce Treaty Stipulations Relating to Chinese. — 
The Question, Does the Bill Violate our Solemn Obliga- 
tions UNDER the Treaty, Discussed. The Probable Conse- 
quences OF such Violation in Connection with our Commerce 
AND Missionary Operations in China, etc., considered. 

Mr. Brown said : 

Mr. President : The problem that the senate now has to deal with is a 
very grave one. The importation of Chinese laborers into this country with- 
out limitation or restriction may promise much misfortune and evil in the 
future ; I think it wise to restrict that importation ; but while we restrict it, 
we should remember that it is the duty of the American Senate and the 
American Government to keep faith with every people and every govern- 
ment upon the face of the earth. 

Some years since, we ratified what was known as the Burlingame treaty 
with China. That treaty caused very friendly relations to be established be- 
tween the two governments, and in some measure between the peoples of the 
two governments. The result of that treaty and those friendly relations was 
a very rapid increase and extension of the commerce of this country with 
China. That commerce is most important to the people of the United 
States. It has long been the complaint of other nations that the Chinese 
Government did not permit intercourse with foreign powers. We have 
reached a period when that rule has been relaxed in China, and there is a 
vast trade there of iuimense value, whose fruits are to be gathered by com- 
mercial powers. Great Britain at pi'eseut has much the better part of that 
trade. As a commercial power we are striving to compete with Great 
Britain and to build up our own trade there as much as possible. 

In this state of the case it seems to me to be a most unfortunate time for 
us to do injustice to the people of China or to offend that government un- 
necessarily. Take, for instance, our manufacturing classes, and there is a 
wide field open there for the sale of their productions. I recollect not long 
since, in a conversation with one of the admirals of our navy, he gave me a 
very interesting account of a period of time spent by him in China. He 
spoke of the immensity of the future commerce of that country, of the 
quality of the cloths with which the Chinese are clad, and the point struck 
me that it was of very great importance to my section of the country that we 
should maintain friendly relations with the Chinese; because if we seek in 
the South to build up our infant manufacturing establishments of cotton, 
woolen, etc., and especially cotton, there is no market in the world so invit- 
ing to us for the class of jioods we make as the market of China. It is said 
that the cloths of the Southern mills, where we have plenty of cotton, where 
the cloth is made honestly of good material and sent to China, have been 
the most popular there of any brands of cloth, because they are the best and 
the most durable. Our infant manufacturing establishments are not in con- 
dition to compete successfully with those of the world elsewhere in the pro- 
duction of the finer fabrics ; and as we make a particular kind of cloth, or a 



APPENDIX. 691 

particular production of our looms, that is peculiarly adapted to that. trade 
or to tht) demands of that empire with its immense numbers of people, it 
would be foolishness on our part to seek wantonly to offend those people, 
and destroy our influence and our commerce among them. Therefore there 
are substantial commercial reasons why we should deal justly and fairly and 
kindly and honestly by them. 

These reasons may not be sufficient to justify us of the South in encourag- 
ing the unlimited importation of Chinamen to the detriment of other sections 
of the Union who protest against it. The people of the United States hav- 
ing become dissatisfied with the unbounded liberty of immigration into this 
country that was given by the Burlingame treaty, sought to get rid of it. 
We sent our plenipotentiaries to China to negotiate for a modification of the 
treaty. And he who reads the di?cussions between our plenipotentiaries and 
the Chinese Government will find that we were not more than a match for 
them in diplomacy. Whatever you may say of them, of their manners, their 
customs, their habits, you cannot say that they are not a cultivated people, 
to a great extent, and you cannot say that their statesmen do not have abil- 
ity, and you cannot say that they do not comprehend these great questions. 
The negotiations referred to abundantly attest the fact of their ability, 
sagacity, and statesmanship, or else they show that, we were very much 
wanting in these high qualities. At any rate, we cannot truthfully claim 
that we got the better of the correspondence. 

But, without tracing the history of that negotiation, we reached the point 
where we concluded a treaty that has been ratified by that government and 
by our Government on this very question. Now, I want to refer to the pro- 
visions of that treaty, and contrast them for a few moments with this bill, 
and see whether we are in good faith carrying out the provisions of the 
treaty. Are we doing our duty, and are we before the civilized world acting 
in honest good faith toward Cl)ina? Are we observing our treaty stipula- 
tions? Or are we in substance and spirit, if not in letter, unblushingiy 
violating those solemn guaranties? If we are violating the compact, then 
we ought to modify this bill and keep within the provisions of the contract 
entered into between the high contracting parties, composed of the repre- 
sentatives of 4:00,00(»,U00 Chinese and 50,000,000 Americans. 

If the treaty will not permit the passage of .such a bill as we desire to 
pass, then in good faith we should suspend action till we negotiate for a 
modification of that treaty, and not resort to an open, unjustifiable violation 
of it, or to a violation of the very spirit and essence of it. I propose, Mr^ 
I'resident, to read the four sections of that treaty. They are as follows : 

Article I. — Whenever in the opinion of the Government of tlie United States the 
coming of Cliiiiese laborers to the United States, or their residences therein, affects oif 
threatens to affect tlie interests of tliat country, or to endanger tlie good order of the 
said country or of any locality within the territory thereof, the Government of China 
agrees that the Goverinnent of the United States may regulate, limit, or suspend such 
coming or residence, but may not absolutely prohibit it. The limitation or suspen- 
sion shall be reasonable, and shall apply only to Chinese who may go to the United 
States as laborers, other classes not being included in the limitations. Legislation 
taken in regard to Chinese laborers will be of such a character only as is necessary to 
enforce the regulation, limitation, or suspension of immigration, and immigrants 
shall not be subject to personal maltreatment or abuse. 

Article II. — Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as teach- 
ers, students, merchants, or from curiosity, together with their body and household 
servants, and Chinese laborers, who are now in the United States, sliall be allowed to 
go and come of their own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights, 
privileges, immunities, and 'exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and sub- 
jects of the most favored nations. 

Article III. — If Chinese laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either, per- 



692 APPENDIX. 

# 

manently or temporarily residing in the territory of the United States, meet with ill 
treatment at the hands of any other persons, the Government of the United States 
will exert all its power to devise measures for their protection and to secure to them 
the same rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions as may be enjoyed by the 
citizens or subjects of the most favored nation, and to which they are entitled by 
treaty. 

Article IV. — The high contracting powers having agreed upon the foregoing 
articles, whenever the Government of the United States shall adopt legislative 
measures in accordance therewith, such measures will be communicated to the Gov- 
ernment of China. If the measures as enacted are found to work hardships upon the 
subjects of China the Chinese minister at Washington may bring the matter to the 
notice of the Secretary of State of the United States, who will consider the subject 
with him; and the Chinese foreign office may also bring the matter to the notice of 
the United States minister at Peking and consider the subject with him, to the end 
that mutual and unqualified benefit may result. 

These are the provisions of the treaty. Does this bill propose in honest 
good faith to carry them out? We have reserved the right to regulate, limit, 
or suspend the coming of Chinese laborers, but the treaty is express and 
positive in its provisions that we shall not absolutely prohibit it, and that our 
legislation on this subject shall be reasonable. Now, does any senator here 
really believe when we were negotiating this treaty with the Emperor of 
China, that our representatives held out to him any such idea as that our 
first step in limitation and suspension would be an absolute inhibition, or 
prohibition of the importation of a single Cliinese laborer for twenty years 
under severe legal penalties? Do you believe, senators, that the Chinese 
Government would have agieed to such a treaty if they had understood that 
this was our interpretation of it? Would they have ratified it? I think no 
senator in this Chamber can believe they would. Let it be borne in mind 
that this is the starting point on our part in the execution of the treaty. In 
carrying out the power of suspension of the coming of Cliinese laboreis that 
under certain circumstances as represented to them by our plenipotentiaries 
might become necessary on the part of this Government, the first step is an 
absolute prohibition for twenty years, with the heaviest penalties if a single 
one known as a laborer comes in within that period. It would be very 
natural for the Chinese Government to conclude that if this is the com- 
mencement in the execution of the treaty, they may look at the end of twenty 
years for a further prohibition for half a century, or ninety-nine years 
probably. No, Mr. President, they will not misunderstand it. That govern- 
ment is intelligent enough to know that this is not carrying out in good faith 
the provisions of the treaty. It may be that we can justify it according to 
the letter, but it is a mere sticking in the bark ; it is not in accordance with 
the spirit or intent of the treaty. 

But let it be remembered that that right of suspension, regulation, or lim- 
itation applies under the treaty only to Chinese laborers, and it is provided 
expressly in the treaty that it does not include any other class of Chinese 
except laborers. Now what as to the other classes of Chinese ? We ex- 
pressly stipulate and bind ourselves that they may go and come of their own 
free will and accord, and that they shall be accorded all the rights, privi- 
leges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to citizens and sub- 
jects of the most favored nation. How do we propose to carry out that 
provision of the treaty ? We propose to enact a law that permits no one of 
them to come until he has first obtained the consent of the Government of 
China. That government has stipulated with us that its subjects not 
laborers shall go and come of their own free will and accord. We put the 
obstacle in the way that they shall go to the expense and trouble of getting 
the consent of their government in each individual case, before they shall 
come, and they shall then get a passport from the Government of China, and 



APPENDIX. 693 

that passport must be viseed by the United States diplomatic agent or con- 
sular agent in China, before they can go on board a vessel to start for the 
United States. 

Supposing the Chinaman seeking to come is a teacher or a student, it is 
expressly stipulated tliat he shall go and come of his own free will and ac- 
cord, with all the exemptions, immunities, and privileges of a citizen or sub- 
ject of the most favored nation. But this bill says he shall neither go nor 
come of his own free will and accord; he shall not start here until he has 
obtained a passport from his own government, and had it properly viseed by 
our representative there. Then he can board the ship coming to our shores. 
When he reaches here the bill provides that the master of the ship shall not 
land until he has exhibited to the custom-house officer the list of the China- 
men on board, with a description of each. The custom-house officer must 
then go on board and examine each, and compare him with his passport, so 
as to establish his identity, and if he has lost his passport he cannot land. 
Then when he has landed he must be ready at all times to exhibit his pass- 
port to the proper authorities of the United States whenever legally de- 
manded. If he is robbed of it or loses it, his failure to exhibit it subjects 
him io fine and impiisonment. The Secretary of the Treasury has then to 
open books, and every Chinaman in this country must be registered in those 
books. Then a certificate must be given each with a most accurate descrip- 
tion of his pei'son. Let nie read that description ; 

" Entry shall be made in such books of the name of every such Chinese, and 
his proper signature, his place of birth, (giving town or district,) date of 
birth, last place of residence before coming to the United States, place of 
residence in the United States, if any, names and residences of his parents, 
if any, date and place of arrival in the United States, employment or busi- 
ness, height, and physical marks or peculiarities by which he may be identi- 
fied. Every applicant for registration shall make oath to the facts stated in 
his registry, which oath shall be recorded in the book of registiy. Collec- 
tors of customs and their deputies shall have power to administer and certify 
to all OHths under this act." 

Bear in mind that the description must be made in the book opened by 
the secietary of the treasury, and it must be signed by the Chinese with his 
own signature. If he be in the condition of a very large number of the people 
of this country, not able to write his own name, though he may not come here 
as a laborer, and may be a man of wealth and come from curiosity, he 
would not comply with the law, because his own proper signature would not 
be upon the descriptive list made by him in the custom-house or upon his pass- 
port. 

We set up a pretty high standard for the Chinaman. We say he must 
come prepared to write his own name, for that is what I understand by a 
man's own proper signature, which must be upon his passport, and upon 
the books in the custom-house, before he can stay here, and if he fails to 
comply with the law in any of these particulars, and he is found at large in 
the United States, he may be taken up and fined or imprisoned. Suppose 
after he lands he loses his passport; with great prejudice against himself 
and his race, unaccustomed to our language, our forms, and our tribunals, 
if he is taken up, how will he protect himself? He cannot do it, and he 
will be thi'own into jail and fined. This would seem to be in violation of that 
provision of the treaty which says he may go and come of his own free will 
and accord. This bill says : 

" And any Chinese who shall knowingly come into the United States con- 
trary to the provisions of this act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, 
and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding flOO, or 



694 APPENDIX. 

by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both said punishments, in the 
discretion of the court." 

If he is a teacher or a merchant or a Chinaman coming liere from curiosity, 
he has a perfect right under this treaty to go and come at his own free will 
and accord. But if he be one of those cliaracters, and he has not complied 
■with everything prescribed in reference to passpoi-t, registration, descriptive 
list, and all that is set forth in this long ponderous bill and its numerous 
sections, he is to be seized and thrown into prison and fined, and remain 
there till he pay the fine ; and that is what we call extending to him the 
same rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to 
citizens and subjects of the most favored nation ! 

Do you, I ask, s-enators, by your law extend such denial of rights and 
privileges to the subjects even of the most unfavored nations? Do you ex- 
tend such treatment to the subjects of any other nation ? Is there any other 
nation on the globe whose subjects are compelled to comply with ail these 
provisions before they can enter an American port? Is there any other 
nation on the globe whose subjects can be seized, tried, fined, and impris- 
oned for the non-compliance with provisions like those contained in this bill? 
If there is an instance I am not aware of it; and I ask any senator favoring 
this bill to point it out. Where is the law on our statute book that compels 
the subjects of Great Britain. France, Germany, Italy, or of any power in 
South America, or of any African chief in the darkest jungles of that be- 
nighted land to comply with any such terms under any such penalties before 
he can enter a port of the United States? 

Mr. Farley. In the fii'st place there is no treaty between the United 
States Government and those governments the senator mentions that such 
legislation maybe had; but in this case there is a solemn treaty between 
the two governments, China and the United States, that such legislation 
may be had as will suspend the further immigration of that class of people, 
but not absolutely prohibit it. 

Mr. Brown. I am sorry to have to take issue with my friend from Califor- 
nia, but his statement is not correct, 

Mr. Farley. It is very plain. 

Mr. Brown. But it is not true. The treaty applies simply to laborers, 
and says distinctly it shall apply to no other class. I am tallying about 
teachers and merchants and students, and those coming from curiosity, who 
are mentioned in the treaty, which expressly excepts them from its provis- 
ions. I say there is no such provision in the treaty as the senator refers to. 

Mr. Farley. There is a provision in reference to laborers. 

Mr. Brown. There is a provision in reference to laborers the senator says. 
I am not controverting that; I was not talking about that. I am talking 
about the provisions of the bill which would apply to other classes, wliere 
the treaty says distinctly and expressly that they are not included in its 
limitations. 

I repeat, there is no such legislation unfavorable to the subjects of any 
other power on earth as we propose to apply to the subjects of China who 
are not laborers, and who are expressly protected by the treaty, and of 
whom it is said, in the treaty to which we have solemnly pledged our faith 
before the world, that they shall go and come of their own tree will and 
accord. If this bill passes they cannot come into the territory of this 
Government without complying with all these cumbersome and burdensome 
provisions that I have mentioned. If the master of a ship brings one in, 
in accordance with the treaty, of his own free will and accord, without a 
compliance of these provisions, he is liable to be punished, and his ship is 
to be seized and forfeited. That is the privilege we propose to extend to 



APPENDIX. 695 

the Chinaman, of ^oing and coming at his own free will and accord, with 
all the rights, privileges, and immunities of the subjects or citizens of 
the most favored nation ! That is the kind of faith we propose to keep. 

Mr. Miller, of California. Will the senator allow me to interrupt him ? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Miller, of California. Does the senator think it would be within the 
treaty for a teacher or merchant belonging to the permitted clasps to show that 
he was one of the permitted class, to show that he was a teacher ? In other 
words, would it conflict with the treaty if we required that he should identify 
himself? If not this, what other plan can be ado})ted by which he may be 
identified as belonging to the permitted class? The provisions of the bill 
are merely for the purpose of identification. They are in the interest of the 
classes enumerated who are permitted to come. If there were no provision 
of this sort in the bill, it would be left to the United States authorities to 
decide whether they were of the permitted classes or not. The bill leaves 
it for the Chinese Government to decide, and those persons whom the Chinese 
Government say are merchants or traders or teachers, and so on, and are 
not laborers, are permitted to come when they present the evidence that the 
Chinese Government gives them of that character. 

Mr. Brown. The provisions of the bill look more to prohibition than 
identification. No unprejudiced mind can read it without being struck with 
its harshness. It breathes an unfriendly spirit from the enacting clause to 
the end of its last section. It violates, without the blush of shame, the ex- 
press and undeniable provisions of a solemn treaty. 

There is nothing in the treaty tiiat requires of any Chinaman of the classes 
about which I have been speaking to bring any certificate of identification. 
It is expressly provided in the treaty that it shall apply to no other class 
except laborers. All other classes stand just where they did before the 
treaty as to their right to come, with the superadded provision in the treaty 
itself that they may go and come of their own free will and accord, with 
the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens or subjects of the most 
favored nation. Do you propose any stringent legislation of this character 
for the identification of an Irishman or a German? The subjects of China 
who are not laborers are placed by treaty in exactly the same position of the 
Irishman or the German. 

Mr. Miller, of California. If the senator will allow me, the treaty has an 
object in it. The object is to prevent the coming of laborers. Tliere has to 
be some mode of deciding who are laborers and who are not laborers, who 
are teachers and who are not teachers ; and that is what the treaty is for. 

Mr. Brown. Yes, the treaty has an object, and so has this bill. The 
object of the bill is to throw such obstacles in the way as will, without regard 
to the treaty, greatly limit, if it does not prevent, all Chinese from coming to 
this country. 

The senator stated when he was la=st up that that was left to the Chinese 
government. I do not think the senator will be quite content to leave it 
there. If you leave it for them to decide, they may give passports indiscrimi- 
nately to everybody who wants to come. Is that the test j'ou are willing to 
apply in determining whether they are laborers ? If you make the Chinese 
government the judge, you must be bound by their judgment, and then you 
have no right to complain of anybody who comes, but you must admit that 
all who come under a passport with registration, etc., are entitled under the 
treaty to come. 

Mr. Miller, of California. Unless it is clearly shown that it was done in 
fraud of the treaty with the Chinese government. 

Mr. Brown. Then what sort of tribunal would you have to try the question 
of fraud? 



696 APPENDIX. 

Mr. Miller, of California. The passports would be viseed by our own con- 
sul or by our diplomatic representative in China. We would leave it to that 
authority. 

Mr. JJrown. I reply to the senator that our representative there is not sup- 
posed to know all the subjects of China, whether tliey are of the laboring class 
or to what class they belong. 

Mr. Miller, of California. They would have the power to investigate. 

Mr. Brown. We have made no provision in the treaty for any sucli inves- 
tigation on their part there. We have agreed that all Chinese except laborers 
may go and come of their own free will. 

Mr. Hoar. Will the senator from Georgia allow me to make a suggestion 
in connection with what he is saying? 

Mr. Brown. Yes, sir; 1 have no objection, though I wish to conclude as 
soon as possible. 

Mr. Hoar. I thought it might perhaps call attention to the point the sena- 
tor was making, if he will permit me, or 1 will make it afterward. 

Mr. Brown. Certainly ; I yield to any senator who wishes to interrupt me. 

Mr. Hoar. The point which the senator from Georgia is making is very 
strongly confirmed by the fact that the bill as originally drawn undertook to 
enforce the treaty to that extent. The first section of the original bill, as 
the senator will find on the paper which he has before him, provides — 

" That all subjects or citizens of China who are students coming to the 
United States for purposes of education, merchants or traders engaged in 
lawful commerce, travellers, etc., may lawfully enter, remain in, or pass 
through the United States upon being identified as hereinafter provided." 

That was the original proposition, which was rejected by the Committee on 
Foreign Relations, and instead of that comes the present bill simply prohibit- 
ing and punishing certain persons who are not found to be so and so, not 
repeating the authority which the treaty gives them. It shows that it was 
the object of the framers of the bill to make a much greater difficulty. 

Mr. Teller. The framers of the bill or tiie committee? 

Mr. Hoar. Those who reported the bill finally propose the amendment. 

Mr. Teller. The committee. 

Mr. Hoar. The senator from Georgia will excuse me for the interrnption. 

Mr. Brown. There is no provision in the treaty requiring the Emperor of 
China to decide whether a subject of his leaving the shores of China for this 
country is a laborer, or whether he belongs to any other class. 'Jhere is no 
provision in the treaty that provides for our consul or diplomatic representa- 
tive in China determining that question. 

Mr. Miller, of California. Is there any hardship that it shall be left to him 
to decide ? 

Mr. Brown. Yes; it would be a very great hard?-hip. If our representa- 
tive were acting there under the prejudice that most people here act under> 
it would be a one-sided tribunal to try the case. 

Mr. Miller, of California. I am speaking of the Chinese government. I 
ask is it a hardship on the Chinese government to decide? 

Mr. Brown. When the Chinese government has provided by treaty that 
its subjects shall come and go at their pleasure, you have no right to ask it 
of the Chinese government, ^or have you a right to impose the burden 
on a Chinese wishing to come here, of going a thousand miles to Pekin to get 
a passport. 

Mr. Teller. I should like to make an inquiry of the senator, if he will 
allow me? 

Mr. Brown. I am willing to be interrupted by all senators. 

Mr. Teller. That is not the proper statement. They have said that a cer- 



APPENDIX. 697 

tain class should not come here if we object to them. Is it unreasonable that 
we should designate tlie class when we h^ave it to them to make prima facii 
evidence of it? Certainly it is very liberal, it seems to me. 

Mr. Brown. The senators all make the point that the treaty authorizes us 
to regulate, limit, and suspend the coming of laborers. 1 am not discussing 
that part of the subject. I am speaking of those who are not laborers. 

Mr. Miller, of California. How wdl you determine that tliey are not 
laborers. 

Mr. Brown. You will probably determine that best when they get here. 
If they come here, and it turns out that they aie simply laborers, and you 
can establish that point and show that ihey came in violation of law and of 
the treaty, you can do as you propose in this bill to do by any of them who 
do not bring a passport and go through the long routine of registi'ation and 
certificates. You can provide a way to have them sent out of the country; 
but you have no right under the treaty, to prevent the classes who have a 
riglit to come from coming because some other classes are prohibited from 
cominsr. 

Take this instance : Suppose a Chinese teacher and students are in the re- 
public of Mexico to-day. They are subjects of the Government of China, 
and they desire to come into the United States. They are in sijfht of our 
boundary line. Under this act, if it is passed, although the treaty says they 
may come and go at pleasure, they must first go home to China and get a 
passport and sad back again before they can enter our limits, though the 
treaty says there shall be no such restriction upon them. Is that keeping 
faith with the Government of China. Is there a senator here who can say 
that that is within the spirit and meaning of this treaty ? I apprehend not 
— not one. 

Have you ever heard of an instance where an Irishman or a German, be- 
fore he cnuld come to this country, must get a passport at home, bring it 
here and have it registered, carry it with him everywhere he goes, show it to 
our officers when required, present it if he wants to go back upon a visit to 
the old country again, and bring it again when he returns? Have they ever 
been cumbered with any such provision as this? Never in any case. No; 
they are subjects of favored nations; they are among the most favored na- 
tions; and when the Irishman and German come here they soon have the 
ballot in their hands, and then they are very good people, and politicians and 
statesmen and everybody respects them; but the Chinaman comes in and we 
raise the clamor that he must not enter till he has been cumbered with all 
these hindrances, although we have expressly pledged our faith to China that 
he shall be put upon the same terms and have the same exemptions, immu- 
nities, and privileges which the Irishman or the German, in the case sup- 
posed has, or which anybody else has. 

AVe have always claimed the rigiit for the citizens and subjects of other 
nations to come to this country and find homes in our vast territory, to be 
naturalized and made citizens; and when so naturalized we have claimed 
that they are absolved from furthei- allegiance to the country of their nativ- 
ity. Great Britain denied this principle in 1812 and claimed the right to 
board our ships on the ocean, to look after her subjects, or those who had 
been such and were then in our service. We denied her right, and fought 
the war of 1812 in vindication of the right of expatriatio^n by the subjects of 
any government who might choose to remove to and become citizens of this 
country. While I do not think it would be wise to naturalize many Chinese 
and make them citizens, under all the circumstances, I see no reason why we 
should not stand by the doctrine of the right of expatriation at least to the . 
extent of protecting all the rights possessed by Chinese subjects under the 



698 APPENDIX. 

treaty of 1881. They do not claim the right of naturalization under that 
trealy. 

Mr. Teller. I should like to ask the senator a question. He has put a 
pretty lengthy one to the entire senate. Does the senator doubt our right 
to exact just such a thing as he has suggested, a passport, from every man 
who comes to this country, if we see fit to exact it? 

Mr. Brown. No, I do not ; but I deny your right under this treaty to re- 
quire it of tlie Chinese unless you require it of other people, because you 
have pledjzed your honor before the civilized world that you would put the 
Chinaman upon the terms of the citizens and subjects of the most favored 
nation. Whenever you put that biu'den on the subjects of the most favored 
natif»n you can without violation of your faith to China place it upon the Chi- 
naman. Till then how do you justify it? I do not question your power to 
apply it to all immigrants, but I do deny that you treat all alike as you 
pledged yourselves to do when you apply it to the Chinaman and apply it 
to nobody else on the face of the earth. I say when we do that we do not 
keep faith. 

I should like to hear any senator explain how it is that we keep faith when 
we throw all these hindrances in the way of the Chinaman who is coming, 
under the provisions of this ti'eaty, and do not put them upon the immigrant 
from any other power or nation on earth. Do you permit them to go and 
come of their own free will and accord, and do you accord to them all the 
rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to citizens 
and subjects of the most favored nations ? Do you ? 1 would be glad to have 
an answer to that question. I have been interrupted several tin)es, and now 
I invite and court the interruption. Let any senator on this floor who un- 
dertakes to defend this bill now rise and say that this bill does not violate 
this provision of the treaty with China. Let him say, and defend his position 
if he can, that this bill puts Chinese not laborers on the same terms or in the 
same position as the subjects of other favored nations. I pause for the in- 
terruption. Defend the position if you can. 

Mr. Farley. Plow would you discriminate between them unless there was 
a provision of that sort? You might as well undertake to discriminate be- 
tween the flies on a bee-gum on a summer's day. You cannot do it unless 
you have a provision of that soit. 

Mr. Brown. That is no answer. It is simply saying that to identify a 
person prohibited by the treaty, you must, from necessity, place a burden on 
a person not prohibited, and from which the treaty expres.-^ly exempts him, 
till you have placed it on the subjects of the most favored nations; which 
you do not pretend has been done, and which you do not propose to do. The 
reason you give may be a very good one in favor of an application to the 
Emperor of China for a modification of this treaty; but it is no reply to the 
charge of violation of the treaty as it now exists. And I again assert that 
no surh reply will or can successfully be made. 

Mr. Farley. They have modified it once. 

Mr. Brown. As the senator from California says, they have modified it 
once; and we had a pretty hard time in getting the modification we have al- 
ready procured to the treaty; but when we have accepted such a modification 
and agreed to be bound by it, and pledged our faith to it, let us in common 
honesty keep faith until it is agnin modified. 

I know we are not bound to stand by a treaty perpetually. We can give 
notice that we will not be bound by it, and we can abrogate it, after proper 
notice, without the consent of the Chinese Government or any other govern- 
, ment. But* we risk the chances of war; we risk the chances of nou inter- 
course : we risk the destruction of our trade and commerce with China when- 



APPENDIX. 699 

ever we do it. If we ai'e willing to take the risks, we have the power to 
annul any treaty that we have entered into. But we must take the conse- 
quences. Now what would be the consequence in this case? 

Mr. Teller. I should like to ask the senator a. question. Is the senator 
aware that he might go to China now, as a senator of the United States, and 
that a great portion of China would be closed to him ; that he could not get 
into it even with a passport? When he talks about the danger of offending 
that nation he should remember that they do not give to any class of our peo- 
ple any such freedom there as he demands for the Chinese here. 

Mr. Brown. Yes; aTid I will inform the senator that the treaty between 
China and this Government does not give it to us. We got no such provision 
in our favor in the treaty. That again may be a good leason why the treaty 
needs modification. The Chinamen really were too shrewd for our states- 
men, as it was avowed on my left in a speech this morning. They got the 
better of the treaty; but is that a reason why we should, refuse to keep faith 
and be bound by it while it is in existence? The manly way is to seek its 
modification, and if that cannot be done, abide by it while it is in force and 
abrogate it when we must, and take the consequences. 

There is another provision in the bill to which I want to refer. The pro- 
vision of the treaty I have just mentioned applies as well to laborers who 
were at the time of the ratification of the treaty in the United States as it 
does to the other classes I have mentioned. They too are guarantied the 
right to go and come at pleasure, of their own free will and accord. Do we 
projiose by this legislation to carry out tho.se provisions in good faith? Do 
we propose to have any regard to our own honor about it? No; we propose 
that they shall not go and come according to their own free will and accord, 
but that they must finst go and register at the custom-house before they can 
go back to that country or go anywhere else, and when they return they must 
have their registration ceitificate or they cannot come in. If it should get 
lost or be burned during their absence they could not enter. The provision 
in the treaty that they may come and go of their own free will and accord 
is simply violated. I can use no milder term. 

It was said by the senator from Colorado [Mr. Teller] in his last remark 
that an American could not go into certain parts of China even with a pass- 
port. That is true; and for a long time he could go into no part of China 
even with a pa^^sport. It has been a very hard struggle for the different 
Christian churches of this country and Great Britain and other parts of the 
world to get admission into the Chinese territory for our missionaries of the 
cross. Better relations have grown up between this country and China. 
They are now admitted into a large part of the empire ; they have privileges 
that they could not have a few years ago. Suppose in this state of things 
we now openly violate the treaty that we have made with China and exclude 
her subjects from coming here as expressly provided by the treaty that they 
may come, would we be astonished if an edict should go forth from the 
Chinese throne that every missionary and every merchant of the United 
States shall be driven from the country? Is this what the American public 
seeks ? Is this what the Christian people of this country desire? 

But it has been said that you cannot teach them Christianity; that they 
will not assimilate with the people of this country. Treat the subjects of 
any other government on earth as you have treated the Chinese in this 
country, and you will find they will not assimilate. The people who hunt 
them down, who throw every obstacle in the way of tiieir progress, who 
enact penal laws in every manner possible for their punishment for offences 
that you would not call crimes in others, should not expect them to assimilate. 
A people thus treated could not be expected to feel inclined to assimilate. 



700 APPENDIX. 

I remember twenty odd years ago Rev. Dr. Stiles, of the Presbyterian 
Church of tlie United States, in one of tlieir general assemblies, in speaking 
of the Africans in this country, used in substance this remark, for I cannot 
quote his exact language : " The Southern church holds up to tlie gaze of 
heaven and earth more converted heathen than can be found in all the mis- 
sionary fields of all the churches in heathen lands." How is it that six and 
a half million of Africans to-day on this continent and within the hounds of 
this Government are civilized, and a large number of them are Christianized? 
Because they were brought here into contact with civilization and Chris- 
tianity. Our missionaries have gone to Africa, to the dark jungles from 
whence they came, and have tried to teach Christianity there; and what has 
been the success? Feeble; amounting to nothing as compared with the 
results where they were here among us. They were brought here as slaves, 
it is true, and they were in some instances maltreated ; but the relations 
between the two races had become very cordial before the emancipation, and 
the result was their Christianization. Take the Chinaman by the hand and 
treat him as you now treat the African, and you will find him assimilate 
much more readily than he does with your hand turned against him, with 
your legislation turned against him, with your penal statutes directed against 
him, with no encouragement offered to him, but every possible discoui'age- 
ment. 

No, the Chinaman does not assimilate. We do not permit him to assimi- 
late. We offer him no inducement to assimilate; and yet with all this 
oppression, and I may say tyranny over him, the Christian churches even in 
California are planting the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ among them. I 
do not know what the will of Providence is upon this question. It may be 
that He has directed these people to our shores as He did the African people 
under circumstances of hardship and oppression, that they may become 
Christianized. If we cannot by proper treatment Christianize them here 
when brought into constant contact and association with a Christian people, 
how do you expect our missionaries to do it in the Chinese territory where 
everything bears the other way? 

I believe in the doctrines of Christianity. 1 believe when it was said, 
" Go, teach all nations," that it was meant. When it was said in another 
place, " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature," I 
believe it was intended ; and I believe the day will come when it will triumph 
in every nation; until the millennial period will be reached; and this may 
be one of the means. I know not what are the decrees of Providence upon 
this subject, but certainly there is more prospect of Christianizing the Chi- 
nese by proper treatment when they are here in contact with us than there 
is by sending missionaries to their country. When we violate faith with the 
government of that country they will naturally ask, "Is this the character 
of the Christianity you send us? Is this the way you keep faith? Is this 
your estimate of moral duty? You make a compact with us, and you pay 
no attention to the obligation of your compact." I do not think this is the 
way to Christianize or civilize the Chinese. If we want to convert them to 
our Christianity and our civilization we must show them that we practice a 
hiiiher morality than this. In my opinion the passage of this act in this 
shape would be a great obstruction to the cause of Christianity in China for 
a long time to come. 

I said that churches had already been planted among them in California. 
Less than two years ago the Southern Baptist convention appointed a mis- 
sionary to San Francisco to teach the Gospel to that people. He has been 
laboring with them but a short period, and he now has a small church of 
Chinamen. Other denominations of Christians also have churches there. 



APPENDIX. 701 

Under all the disadvantages and all the disrespect shown them there, the 
Gospel still makes its impression upon them; and if we should treat them 
diiferently we do not know how fast, by getting into their confidence and 
showing a disposition to do justice, the Gospel would spread among them. 

But it is said that there is such an immense number of them, if we permit 
them to come here without restraint, they will overrun the whole country. 
There have been about thiity-two years when there has been no such 
restraint. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was ratified, I believe, in 1848. 
From that time until this, so far as I know or recollect, there has been no 
law that prohibited the importation. What number have they reached in 
thirty-two years V The senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] in his able 
speech told us, the other day, that, according to the last census, there were 
about 108,000 Chinese in this country, about 76,000 of those in Ciilifornia. 
Divide that into thirty years, and what has been the average each year? 
Between three and four thousand immigrants a year. Some years it has 
gone above that, some years it has fallen below. Probably tliere has been a 
larger number of immigrants, but to speak accurately, for a great many have 
gone back, that is the number remaining here to overrun this immense con- 
tinent and subjugate the Anglo-Saxons in the United States. In thirty-two 
years they have succeeded in having 108,000; but as it is said the census did 
not embrace all, put it at 150,00!', if you please, and it has been a very small 
importation as compared with that from other countries. Take the last year, 
and the reports show that tliere were in ]-ound numbers 689,000 immigrants 
into this country, nearly three-quarters of a million. How many of them 
were Chinamen? A mere fractional part; and last year, bear in mind, they 
were laboring under the stimulus that this treaty would soon be m the way, 
and it was better to hurry up if any of them expected to get in as laborers. 
Even then, 1 believe, some 20,000 Chinamen is all that it is claimed came to 
this l^ountry out of 669,000 immigrants during the year. 

No, Mr. President, there is nothing in tliat point. There is no danger of 
the Chinese race, or any other eastern race, overrunning the Anglo-Saxon or 
any white race in Europe or America. The tide of emigration has been 
westward, and still westward, since the days of the Goths and Vandals. Ye.*, 
it runs westward. I'he Chinese empire is in a great deal more danger to-day 
of being overrun and subverted by Yankee energy and Yankee enterprise on 
the one side, and the empire of Russia on the other, and England on the 
ocean, than this country is of being overrun by Ciiinamen. If we can get a 
treaty there as liberal as we can by acting in good faith, at no distant day 
they will admit our people without restraint, and then we may expect our 
merchants and manufacturers of various classes to go, and we will soon have 
thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of our people in China. 
It is a vast field opening to commerce; it is a vast field opening to manu- 
factures and to railroads, and to every other enterprise, to steamships, to 
telegraphs, to telephones, to all the inventions of the age. It is a wide field 
open for us. No people on earth are more interested in that country than 
the people of the United States. 

As I said in the outset, Great Britain has the lead there now. If we keep 
faith with Chinamen and the Chinese government, and act as we ought to 
act as a rising agricultural and manufacturing power, being a great silver- 
producing country as we are, with our great silver mines, and they being 
monometallists in silver, and with our manufacturing establishments making 
just the fabrics they need, we outiht to build up a boundless trade there, and 
it ought to be a great field for white men's energy and thrift and gain. I 
do not think, then, we would act wisely to violate good faith with these 
people. 



702 APPENDIX. 

We have made vast expenditures to enable us to reach the immense future 
commerce of China, Japan, and other Asiatic nations. We have as good aa 
donated sixty-six millions of dollars, which, with interest, now amounts to 
about one hundred millions of dollars, and land grants covering a territory 
larger than the republic of France or the German empire, to open a great 
highway by railroad to the commerce of the East, which lorings that com- 
merce to our doors by a route thousands of miles nearer than it can be 
reached by European nations. In addition to this, companies of capitalists 
have constructed a southern line of railroad across the continent, to put the 
southern section of the Union in closer relations with tlie Eastern powers. 
And still anotiier great line is being rapidly pressed forward, known as the 
Northern Pacific Road. In addition to all this we have put costly lines of 
steamers on the Pacific ocean. Thus we have already expended hundreds 
of millions of dollars to open the highways of commerce to the Eastern 
empires. We produce about 60 per cent, of the cotton of the world. The 
400,000,000 of people in the Chinese empire use cotton almost exclusively 
for clothing. The cotton goods made by our mills meet their requirements 
better than those made by the mills of any other country. This alone, to 
say nothing of all the other commerce between the two countries, is to be a 
vast item especially important to the Southern States of this Union. 

By the Burlingame treaty we had conciliated the government and people 
of China, and they have shown a disposition to cultivate the most friendly 
relations with us; and to engage in an active commerce which will be mutu- 
ally beneficial, and which may soon grow to hundreds of millions a year. 
In view of all these important considerations, are we prepared to sacrifice 
the investments we have made, and the vast advantages opening to us for 
the future, by giving unnecessary and unjustifiable ofience to China by a 
flagrant violation ot our treaty stipulations with that government, when 
there is not even a plausible pretext for the act, as we can amply protect 
ourselves against the evils of any dangerous influx of Chinese laborers, and 
still keep within both the letter and spirit of the treaty. The commerce 
between this country and China is now rapidly on the increase. 

In this connection I want to read from an answer to a telegram which I 
sent to the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, I inquired of him what was 
the per cent, of increase in our commerce with the Chinese people since the 
Burlingame treaty. He states in reply that at the time of the adoption of 
the treaty it was ^15,365,013. During the year ending June 30, 1881, it was 
$27,765,409, an increase almost doubling our commerce with China in thir- 
teen years. Suppose we act in bad faith in this matter and offend that 
people and their government, where we aie in the wrot'g, may we expect 
this progression of increase to go forward as it has gone since the Burlin- 
game treaty was ratified? No; we have much more reason to suppose it 
will go backward, and that we will have to yield that most inviting field to 
England, and France, and other commercial nations, who will deal justly by 
tliem and keep faith with them. 

It has been objected, however, that the Chinamen in this country work 
for wages lower than our people can afford to work, and that we cannot on 
that account permit them to come. I state very frankly that I do not want 
to introduce a class of people here to interfere with the labor of this country, 
or to reduce labor to a lower standard. I have always stood firmly by the 
laboring classes. I oppose every measure that looks to the reduction of the 
price of labor. But when you look at the statistics and statements that we 
read in the newspapers, I believe about the highest labor now on the conti- 
nent is found in the State of California. I think the senator from Massa- 
cliusetts [Mr. Hoar] demonstrated that the other day in his speech. Our 



APPENDIX. 703 

laborers there get better -wages, when they are willing to work, than they 
get probably in any other State in tlie Union. This does not look as if 
Chinese labor there has ruined our working people. 

But there is another insuperable objection raised. It is said the Chinese 
come here not to stay. It is not very consistent with tlie other proposition, 
that they are going to overrun the continent, to state that tiiey work and get 
our money and then go back home again. If they work so low that nobody 
else can labor for half as small a price as they do, for every dollar they carry 
back they leave two dollars' worth of labor here. That does not destroy the 
country much; that does not injure the United States a great deal. If we 
can keep them out of conflict with other laborers — and they have been mostly 
engacred in railroad building and other pursuits where you could scarcely get 
American laborers, in the wilderness — if they do that sort of labor for us 
which we cannot get our people to do, and do it at half what the labor is 
worth, and then leave with the money, we keep in improvements two dollars 
for every one they take away, and our civilization has not been injured. So 
that point, I think, weighs but little. 

I believe, Mr. President, I have gone substantially over the ground I de- 
sired to occupy in this case. As I stated in the outset, I am willing to vote 
for a bill to restrict, limit, and for a reasonable time suspend, in accordance 
with the spirit and provisions of this treaty, the importations of Chinese labor- 
ers. I do not think twenty years a reasonable period, I do not think it in 
conformity to the spirit and meaning of the treaty. I do think it a viola- 
tion of the very spirit of the treaty. Therefore on that point I shall vote for 
the amendment of the senator from Kansas [Mr. Ingalls], which proposes 
to limit it to ten years. I think that is as far as the Chinese Government 
could periTiit us to go with the belief that we were acting in good faith. And 
to show how careful they were on this subject, they have provided in the 
treaty that any legislation we shall enact on this point is to be submitted to 
them and become the subject of negotiation if it is not reasonable. We can- 
not expect they will say that this is within the reason and spirit of the treaty. 
If they say it is not, and claim further concessions we shall probably then be 
too proud to make them, for we shall have acted and will not like to go back 
on our action, and the result will probably be disastrous to our intercourse 
and our commerce with that empire. 

If we commence by a shorter period of limitation or suspension, and the 
Government of China is satisfied with it, and we still believe at the end of 
ten years that the importation of Chinese laborers is a positive evil, we can 
re-enact it ; but I do not think it is wise or just, or that we keep faith when 
we say we will commence by an absolute inhibition for twenty years under 
heavy penalties. If that is the letter of the treaty it is clearly not the spirit 
of it, and as statesmen, most of us lawyers, knowing something of the rules 
of construction, it is our duty to deal fairly and construe this instrument as 
we do other legal documents, and then to carry out faithlully its provisions 
until we have changed them or have given notice that we will no longer be 
bound by the treaty. 

I know I do not occupy the popular side of this question. In a somewhat 
protracted political career it has frequently been my misfortune to differ with 
majorities, and to stand in the current without flinching, while the surging 
waves of popular disapproval rolled over me and lashed me with their fury. 
And I have afterward lived to see the storm subside, the elements become 
calm and tranquil, and to hear the plaudit of well done, for the act that pro- 
voked the storm. 

The statesman who adopts the rule of pandering to popular opinion may 
float peacefully with the current for the time, but he will soon be called to 



704 APPENDIX. 

answer at the same bar of public opinion for acts which at the time of their 
performance were hailed with deliglit. My rule is to inquire : Is it right? 
and if right to move forward without fear. 1 would rather be right ilian 
popular. 1 would rather have the approval of my own conscience tlian the 
plaudits of the multitude, or the temporary approval of those who are con- 
trolled by their passions and not by their reason and their judgment. 



Speech of Hox. Joseph E. Broavn, op Georgia, ^delivered ix the 
Senate of the United Siates, March 27, 1882, on the Tariff 
Commission Bill, in which Free Trade, and a Takiff for Pro- 
tection, AND a J ARIFF for ReVEXUE WITH INCIDENTAL PROTECTION 
ARE DISCUSSED, ALSO THE INTERKST WHICH PlANTKHS, FaRMKRS, 

Herdsmen, AVool-Groweks, Fruit-Growers, etc, have in a 
Tariff for Revenue with Incidental Protection. 

On the bill (S. No. 22) to provide for the appointment of a commission to investi- 
gate the question of the tariff and internal-revenue laws. 

Mr. Brown said : 

Mr. President : I had not expected to say anything whatever on the pend- 
ing bill. My throat is in such a condition to-day that I cannot speak with 
much comfort. However, as tlie time agreed on for the discussion is limited, 
and other senators want to occupy the floor to-morrow, 1 will go on and sub- 
mit a few remarks at this hour. 

I am not vain enough to suppose I can produce anything new on this great 
question. It was discussed by the great men who laid the foundations of 
this Government. In 1816 and for many years after that date it was dis- 
cussed by such men as Calhoun, Cl^ty, and Webster. It has since been dis- 
cussed again and again by the first men of this country. The principles of 
each conflicting theory are well understood. I have listened with great 
interest to the able debate which has been conducted during this session, and 
I have heard but little that I could say was entirely new. It has been an 
able presentation of facts and arguments heretofore produced by the great 
statesmen who have already exhausted the subject and left nothing new to 
be said by those of the present time. 

I do not, therefore, propose to enter upon the discussion of the principles 
involved either in free trade or protection, but I rose chit fly to say that in 
my opinion this contest is more a war of words than of ideas. I do not 
mean by that that very strong ideas have not been produced on both 
sides, that very forcible arguments have not been brought forth on this floor, 
because it is true that there have been many good ideas submitted on both 
sides. If they lacked novelty that did not detract from their force. 

I notice by turning to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury that there 
were coHected during the last fiscal year $198,159,676.02 on imports. In 
round numbers, I will call it i$200,000,()() > per atmum. How do we propose 
in future to raise this sum, if we cannot dispense with it? As I understand, 
it is not proposed to lessen to any great extent the appropriations which we 
have to make this year. We still have to pay interest upon the public debt, 
and to provide a proper sinking fund upon the debt each year, looking to an 
extinction of it alter a reasonable time. We still expect to pay a very lar^e 
sum each year for pensions. We expect to appropriate large sums each year 
for rivers and haibors, for the Army and Navy, tor the Military and Naval 
Academies, for the civil establishment, for pensions and various other ex- 
penditures, I confess that while I would be very happy to see a large re- 



APPENDIX. 705 

duction in the public expenditures, I do not see that the Way is very clear 
for it at this time. I do not believe we are likely to make the appropriation 
ac tins session, judging from the appropriation bills 1 have already seen, 
much less than they were for the present fiscal year. A very large additional 
sum is asked for the improvement of the Mississippi lliver, and the present 
terrible destruction of property by the great fresliet would seem to justify 
and indeed to require it. Thus you must raise $^00,OUO,UOii by tariff for 
the current year. 

How do you propose to collect this $200,000,000 ? There are but two modes 
that I am aware of. One is a direct tax upon the people, the other is collect 
it upon imports. Which will we choose ? 1 have heard no senator on this 
side who has discussed what might be termed the free-trade side of tlie ques- 
tion propose to raise it by a direct tax. What would it amount to? We 
have thirty-eight States. Take my own State, Georgia ; say it is an average 
State. If f2UO,000,Oi)0 should be raised by direct taxation, Georgia must 
raise each year in addition to what is now raised, by the collection of inter- 
nal revenue and State tax, a sum amounting to over $5,00U,OU0. Her people 
must submit to the present State tax, school tax, county tax, corporate 
tax, and all the taxes now collected which they consider burdensome, and 
we must add to that, if we are to collect it by a direct tax, more than $5,- 
0U0,0i)0 a year, which would be about four times as much as we now raise by 
taxation added. I take it for granted no senator on this floor representing 
any one of the States will advocate that course for the collection of all our 
Federal revenue. If he does, my opinion is he will find a large proportion 
of his constituents differing in opinion with him. Then how do we propose 
to collect itV We must collect it as heretofore, by levying a tariff upon im- 
ports. The addition of about five and a quarter millions a year to the inter- 
nal revenue paid in cash by the people of Georgia for Federal purposes would 
knock all the poetry out of the able free-trade speeches to which we have 
listened with so much interest. 

Doubtless the same would be true in all other States. Our people prefer a 
tariff to direct taxes. They are willing that those who buy the most 
imported goods pay the most tax. 

But I see that we not only collect in round numbers ^200,000,000 a year 
on imports, but we also collect $135,000,000 per annum at present by direct 
tax laid upon certain articles, as whiskey, tobacco, etc. That tax 1 suppose 
could not properly at present be collected upon imports, and yet the policy 
and theory of this Government thus far has been, excepting war measures, to 
collect the entire revenues by a tax upon imports. This 1 believe to be the 
true policy. I believe it was so from the foundation of the Government 
down to the period of the war of 1812. Then, as I understand it, we had an 
internal-revenue tax, something after the order of that we have growing out 
of the late unfortunate civil war; but the country got rid of it at no late 
period after the war had terminated. Then our fathers of both political par- 
ties, Whig and Democrat, advocated alike the collection of the revenues for 
the support of the Government by a tariff upon imports. 

I consider the present internal-revenue system an excrescence upon the 
body-politic. So was that of the war of 1812. They were war measures. 
They were justifiable in public estimation upon no other theory. I wish to 
see the present internal-revenue system gotten rid of, so that we may return 
to the old rule of the fathers as soon as the expenditures can be reduced to a 
point where we can, without too heavy an imposition of tariff upon imported 
goods, collect the entire money that the Government must raise annually by 
a tariff" upon imports, as advocated and practiced, except in time of war, by 
Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Calhoun, Clay, 
45 



706 APPENDIX. 

Webster, and all the great statesmen of this country. It is safe to heed the 
counsels and follow the example of such men. The sooner we return to the 
old beaten track trod by them the better. 

I have introduced no bill at present for that purpose, because I see that 
we cannot probably at this time raise the amount that it is necessary to have 
as revenue upon imports alone, but I trust the day is not far distant when 
that can be done. 

In view of that fact and in view of the large increase in the population of 
this country, its increased resources of eveiy character, the necessarily in- 
creased expenditures that we have to make every year, I do not see the 
period ahead when it will be very important to discuss the question whether 
we should collect a tax on imports for revenue only or for protection. You 
will be obliged to collect more than -1200,000,000 a year probably for all the 
future. It was last year over ^360,000,000, and $333,000,000 of it was on 
imports and by the internal-revenue laws. If you have to collect that, and 
if it is not likely in future ever to come below $250,000,000 or $300,C00,O0O 
a year, there need be very little dispute about whether the tariff is to be laid 
for revenue only or for protection. It must be laid and collected, no matter 
what you call it. If the tariif is properly distributed among the different 
articles imported in every instance there will be a tariff affording as much 
protection probably as such interest will need. 

If I recollect correctly the earliest tariff imposed in this country expressed 
on the face of it or in the title of the act that it was to be an act to raise 
revenue and for the protection of manufacturing establishments. I think it 
was necessary at that time, but the protection has been enjoyed for so long 
a period and our manufacturing establishments have so strengthened them- 
selves that they are not in the condition they then were. It is not now 
necessary, and probably will not be necessary in the future, to consider se- 
riously the question whether we must lay a tax on imports for the protection of 
our home industries. As long as we have to collect from $200,000,000 to $3U0,- 
000,000 a year for revenue that question will not be an important one. It 
may be very important, and it is now, that the $200,000,000 or $300,000,000 
a year shall be distributed in such manner as to protect incidentally as far 
as possible all our home industries and all our American productions, adjust- 
ing it so as to do as much good as possible to all and as little harm as pos- 
sible to any. 

I confess I take a medium position here. I am neither a free-trade man, 
willing to collect all the money we have to raise by direct tax upon the peo- 
ple, nor am I willing to lay a tax simply for protection when the Government 
does not need the money. But if I had it in my power I would raise all the 
money necessary to support the Government by tariff, and I would so adjust 
the tariff which we have to raise to meet the necessary expenses of the Gov- 
ernment as to afford as far as possible an incidental protection to home in- 
dustry and to American productions. It seems to me that is common sense, 
and that patriotism and statesmanship alike require it. We of the South 
are more interested in incidental protection than the manufacturers of the 
North. We are now in our infancy ; they have reached nearly to mature 
manhood. Many of them are now able to take care of themselves. We are 
not. They have skilled labor and the most improved machinery ; we have 
little skilled labor and much of our machinery is not the best. 

Some of the senators whose arguments seem to look in the direction of 
free trade point out to the planters and farmers of this country the advan- 
tages of free trade, and tell them that as the law now stands they pay a 
heavy per cent, on the imported goods purchased by them, and grow eloquent 
about the amount of money they would save on the goods purchased by them 



APPENDIX. 707 

if there were no tariff. But I have noticed that no one of them has told 
the people how much direct tax they would be compelled to pay on their 
lands and all their other property to raise the $200,000,000 annually which is 
necessary to meet the demands on the Federal Treasury and which must be 
raised by a direct tax if it is not collected by a tariff. They forget to tell 
the people of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and other States how 
much of the $200,000,000 direct tax would fall to their share if there were no 
tax on imports. There are planters in Georgia, worth ten or twenty thou- 
sand dollars, who live so nearly within themselves that they pay very little 
toward the support of the Federal Government, as they buy very little of 
the imported goods that are taxed. Their coffee and tea are on the free list, 
and their part of the burden is very light. Others who purchase largely of 
fine clothes and luxuries pay most of the tax. But if we abolis^h the tariff 
and raise the money by direct tax, the property of those who live within their 
means and live on the production of their farms will be taxed more than 
many others who purchase much more largely of luxuries or imported goods, 
because they have more property to be taxed than those have who live more ex- 
travagantly and own less property. This very independent class of substan- 
tial planters would for the first time feel the weight of the burden when 
called on annually to pay in cash five times as much direct tax as they 
now pay. 

There are gentlemen of great ability who believe that the true theory is to 
lay tax on imports with a view to the collection of revenue only. Then, why 
is it that we find coffee and tea upon the free list? I see by looking at the 
last ofiicial report that there were during the year 1881 imported free into 
this country over $56,000,000 worth of coffee; the year before that over $60,- 
000,000 worth. I see also that during the year 18S1 more than $21,000,000 
worth of tea was imported free into this country. If we are laying a tariff 
for revenue only, why not put it heavily upon tea and coffee ? The people of 
this country did not dispense with the use of whiskey and tobacco because 
you doubled the price by the tax on them ; and if you are after revenue only 
you may put lOO per cent, of the value upon tea and coffee and there will 
still be almost as large a quantity used as there now is. I advocate no such 
thing. I do not ask that coffee be taken off the free list, I only say the peo- 
ple of this country drink it, and intend to contiinie to drink it, and you can 
put no reasonable tax upon it that will cause them to cease the use of it. I 
would not advocate the change, but I ask my friends vsho advocate a tariff 
for revenue only, without any regard to incidental protection to home in- 
dustry, why not put a very heavy tax upon these articles that nobody doubts 
woiild be paid? If revenue is wiiat you want to raise, you can raise forty 
millions on coffee. If you want revenue without regard to incidental protec- 
tion, tea will pay you many millions of dollars if you will put a tariff upon it 
and not let it stand upon the free list. 

I take it when we sit down and undertake to draw a tariff bill and under- 
take to pass it through the senate, placing twenty-five per cent, or fifty per 
cent, upon tea and coffee, which will bear it for revenue only, it would find 
few advocates. Yet why not put a tariff upon them if we are not afraid of 
the people, and if we go for revenue only, and prefer not to give incidental 
protection to home industry and home productions? A tariff on tea and 
coffee protects no American industry, and if we are opposed to the incidental 
protection of American industry and want to so levy the tax, as simply to 
raise revenue, then why not put it on tea and cdffee? We raise no tea in 
this country worth mentioning; we raise no coffee here; yet we bring in of 
tliese articles a very large amount of merchandise free of tax, because every- 
body uses them, and statesmen are not willing to meet the popular clamor 



708 APPENDIX. 

that would be raised by putting a heavy tax upon them. At present we per- 
mit these articles to come in tree, and 1 think correctly, because the people 
of this country so desire it, and the poorer classes are better able to use them. 
I think instead of putting the tax upon tea and coffee, that protects no 
American industry, it is better that we put it on other things which shall 
protect American industry. Therefore I am not finding fault with the law 
as it now stands in reference to tea and coffee. Let the people have them as 
cheap as possible. I am simply saying that if we are for revenue only we 
are then inconsistent in not imposing a heavy tax upon those articles. 

To illustrate, suppose the whole amount to be raised by tariff to be 
$20,000,000. Tea and coffee would bear the whole amount and still be im- 
ported and used almost as extensively as they now are. Now as we do not 
raise tea and coffee in this country we would give no protection, incidental 
or otherwise, to American industry or American productions by collecting 
the whole amount on those articles. But suppose you put the $20,000,000 of 
tariff on manufactured articles, made of cotton and flax, then you give $20,- 
000,000 incidental protection to factories and laborers engaged in the produc- 
tion of those articles. In each case the people pay precisely the same amount 
of tax or tariff, to wit : $20,000,0(.)0. If it is collected on tea and coffee the 
tax is more generally distributed, and more of it is paid by the poorer class 
of our people who use tea or coffee and who purchase but few manufactured 
articles. In the other case, the wealthier class, who purchase more nitinu- 
factured articles pay most of the tax. Now, I submit it to every candid 
American citizen, which would best promote American interest: to collect 
the amount which we are compelled to pay by putting it upon such articles 
as give incidental protection to home industry, or on such articles as discrim- 
inate in favor of foreign industry and foreign production? It seems to nie 
too clear for controversy that we should give the iucidental protection to our 
own home industries. 

I find in looking at the last official report that there were $650,000,000 of 
merchandise in round numbers, I do not quote the thousands, imported last 
year. Of this $448,000,000 paid revenue and $202,000,000 came in on the 
free list ; and a large number of those articles on the free list are articles that 
we do not compete with here. 1 think it is judiciously put where it is in 
most cases. If we could get rid of the Internal Kevenue Bureau, with all its 
consequences, which I do not care to speak about at present, I would be will- 
ing to put some tariff on a number of articles that are now upon the free list. 
As matters now stand we maintain two armies of collectors — those at the 
custom-house and those at the internal-revenue offices. It is an immense ex- 
pense, and it is an immense engine of political power, and I do not think it 
is desirable that it should be in the hands of either political party. AVhile 
the internal-revenue systi-m is at present an engine of power in the hands of 
the Republican party, if the Democracy were in power to-day and our imports 
would bear it, I would advocate abolishing the internal-revenue system entire- 
ly. Let us have but the one corps of collectors, and let those be at the ports. 

But again, I see that of the total amount of duties collected, $17,000,000 
in round numbers was collected on sugar and molasses. This gives a pro- 
tection of about 40 per cent, to our sugar plantei"S. This is protection to 
Southern planters. I simply submit it to my free-trade friends, if there be 
any here, whether we could maintain the Southern sugar plantations one 
year after that tariff is taken off. If with $47,000,000 of protection we 
are hard run to make anything under the present system of labor on our 
sugar plantations, what would it be if you should enact free trade there? 
Much ado is already made about the sugar tliat comes in free under the 
Hawaiian treaty of reciprocity, and it is getting to be a serious evil. 



APPENDIX. 709 

Again, $27,000,000 was collected on wool and the manufactures thereof. 
What would our free-trade friends, if there be any here, say, or rather what 
would the constituents of those friends say to them in all places, in the pas- 
toral lands of Texas and the great West where there are such immense flocks 
of sheep, if you were to remove this tax upon woolens, for wool and woolens 
stand next to sugar and molasses in the quantity of tariff raised upon them ? 
They are now protected by $27,000,000 raised on wool and woolens. And if 
you were to impose a direct tax in lieu of this — in other words, if you were 
to withdraw the protection that you now give them on wool, and put about 
five times as much direct tax (as a United States tax) as they now pay as a 
State tax upon their flocks and the property they use in producing wool, 
what would they say to you? I do not think that such action would be ap- 
proved by any Western constituency where sheep are raised. 

The third largest item is the duties on iron and steel and the manufactures 
thereof, amounting to $21,000,000 in round numbers. There may be some 
portions of the Middle States where they are far enough advanced in the 
manufacture of iron and steel to afford to have the tariff removed and have 
a direct tax, four or five times as much tax as is now collected, imposed upon 
the plant and machinery and everything used in making iron, but I do not 
think there is such a place in Pennsylvania, which I believe has the lead in 
the iron business. I am very sure we could not stand a moment under it in 
Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, where the iron interest is in future to be 
one of the greatest interests of the South, if not crushed by unfriendly legis- 
lation. Large amounts of capital are now being invested in it, and it is af- 
fording employment to a large number of people. 

The fourth largest item is the manufacture of silk, $19,000,000. That is a 
great growing interest in this country, that I suppose no statesman desires 
to destroy. I am not in this connection discussing whether any of the pres- 
ent tariff^ rates are too high or too low, or what adjustinent they need ; I sim- 
ply say I presume no member of the senate would desire to withdraw 
entirely the tax from silk and let that interest go down. There has been an 
immense amount of capital invested in it, and we import most of the raw 
material from abroad, in fact nearly all of it. To remove the tariff from it 
would be to entirely crush it. It seems to me it would not be good states- 
manship to do it, and then impose a direct tax, as the free-trade advocates 
must do to raise the necessary revenue after they abolish the tariff, of more 
than four times as much as the owners of the silk factories now pay upon 
the plant and machinery and everything connected with it. That interest 
could not stand a moment under such legislation. 

The fifth in the list is cotton and the manufactures of it. As much as has 
been said about cotton-mills, there are four other great interests that stand 
ahead, and more revenue is paid on account of them than on account of the 
importations of cotton and cotton goods. There it is only $10,U00,000 in 
round numbers that is collected. 

The sixth item is flax. That is grown by our farmers in several of the 
States of the Union, and is a very important interest. Flax and the manu- 
factures of flax yield a revenue of nearly $7,00il,0()0 a year to the Govern- 
ment. What would those who raise flax in the West and to some extent in 
the South say to us if we were to take this tariff entirely off and put from 
three to five times as much tax as we now do upon the lands on which they 
raise the flax? That would be carrying out free trade and direct taxation to 
its legitimate result. I do not believe any senator desires that. Hence I 
do not believe there is a senator here who is an open advocate of free trade 
in this country while we are obliged to make the immense collections of rev- 
enue that we now make. If there is, I have heard no one so express it. The 



710 APPENDIX. 

remarks of some senators indicate free trade. But I ask senators if they 
are for free trade with its legitimate consequences? Free trade means to 
raise §200,000,000 annually by direct taxation upon the property of all the 
people in addition to the present internal revenue and State taxes. I ask 
senators if they are for it ? 

There are a great many other articles that are protected which are not 
simply manufactured articles. The six items I have referred to, however, 
and they ai'e all very important ones in the industry of this country, yield 
$133,000,000 of revenue, or over 69 per cent, of the whole amount of revenue 
collected on imports. No one, I presume, desires to crush any one of those 
great interests. 

But there are other important interests of the farmer that are protected by 
the present tariff. There is a tariff upon live-stock ; you may say it does not 
need protection. Why? There was $3,700,000 worth of live-stock brought 
into this country last year to get in and compete with our stock-raisers that 
paid tariff. Your herdsmen would not be very much obliged to you for tak- 
ing off the present tariff that protects their live-stock, and adding four or 
five times as much direct tax on the herds as they now pay. This is the in- 
evitable result of free trade. 

Then I find that barley is protected. That is a product of the farmer 
again ; and, notwithstanding the tariff, there was f 7,200,000 worth of barley 
and barley malt that paid the tariff and came in last year to compete with 
our farmers who raise barley. What would the people of Missouri, Ken- 
tucky and other Western States that raise barley say to the free-trade man 
who would propose to take off that tariff and let all the barley of foreign 
countries come in, and add a tax of from three to five times as much as is 
now collected upon the plantation where the barley is raised? The farmer 
who plants barley would not like that sort of free trade. 

Then on the article of cotton and cotton manufactures there was over 
$30,000,000 worth imported last year that paid the tariff. If you will remove 
the tariff from the statute-book, and impose upon our cotton plantations and 
factories from three to five times the present amount of taxes, they will not 
be much obliged to you. If you repeal the tariff and enact free trade there 
is not a cotton plantation in the South that will not have to pay from tliree 
to five times as much direct tax as it now pays. Many of them now buy 
little that is imported, and pay little of the tax. Then they would all be 
taxed on the value of their plantations, adding for United States tax three 
to five times as much as they now pay the State. 

There was over $16,000,000 worth of flax, and articles manufactured of 
flax, that came in last year and paid the tariff. Would you take the tariff 
from flax and load the lands upon which our farmers produce it with a heavy 
direct tax? 

Take the item of fruits and nuts, another item in which the planters, the 
farmers, the orchard men and gardeners are interested. There was over 
$12,000,000 worth of fruits and nuts imported last year that paid tariff be- 
fore they could compete with our fruits and nuts. Your fruit men would not 
bless your memory if you were to take off all the tariff that now pi'otects 
them, and impose a heavy direct tax upon their orchards, their vineyards 
and their gardens. 

There was over four million dollars' worth of furs imported last year that 
paid the tariff and came in. Your Western hunters would not be much 
obliged to you for taking off all tariff that protects their furs. Whether 
you could impose any direct tax on their business or not, tliey would still 
want the protection they now have. But other articles besides those men- 
tioned in which the farmer is interested are protected by the present tariff. 



APPENDIX. 711 

Indian corn, oats, rye, wheat, and the meal or flour made of the equalities of 
grain mentioned are protected, and some of each has come in and paid the 
tariff to jret in during the past year; pease, beans, and other seeds of legu- 
minous plants were imported last year to the value of •?337,000, and paid 
tariff to get into competition with our own farmers; about one million of 
dollars' worth of bristles annually pay tariff to get in ; hair to the value of 
over $660,000 paid tariff and came in; "jute and other grasses " which can 
be raised in Florida and other Southern States, and the different manufac- 
tures of those products came in to the value of about $9,000,000, and paid 
tariff; leather and the manufacture of leather of all kinds, worth nearly 
$6,000,000, did the same ; the same is true of potatoes to the value of over 
$874.000 ; provisions, (meats, poultry, lard, butter, cheese, etc) not includ- 
ing vegetables, to the value of $1,278,000, paid tariff before they could get 
in and compete with our farmers ; flax-seed or linseed, and other seeds, worth 
$1,713,000, did the same; the same was true of tobacco and cigars, worth 
over $6,000,000; the same is true of wines, spirits, and cordials, to the value 
of over $8,000,000, which can be raised on the Pacific slope as well as in 
Europe, which is soon to become one of our great agricultural interests ; the 
same i'^ true ot woods, including board*, joists, scantling, shingles, etc, worth 
over $8,000,000; -rice to the amount of over 61,000,000 of pounds, worth 
$1,413,000, also paid tariff and came in. I might add still others to the 
long li-;t of protected articles which pertain to the interests of our farmers, 
planters, herdsmen, gardeners, fruit-growers, etc., but I do not deem it nec- 
essary. 

Now, I ask senators, would your sugar-planters, your rice-planters, your 
hemp-planters, your flax-planters, your fruit-growers, your herdsmen and 
garden-men, and all the others I have mentioned, approve your action if you 
should remove all protection from them and load them with a heavy burden 
by direct taxation ? If that is not what you mean by free trade, what do 
you mean? You can mean nothing else. 1 believe no senator will get up 
here and say he advocates it. Then, if that be tiue, it is understood, I sup- 
pose, that we are to continue to collect the revenues, or much the larger 
portion of them at least, and I trust at no distant day all of them, by a tariff 
upon imports. If so, on what articles will you impose tiiat tariff? It is an 
immense sum you have to raise. You cannot get rid of it. There is no es- 
cape from it ; you must collect it ; and you will continue to collect it. There 
is a vast amount of protection in it, no matter how you shape the tariff. JJut 
the question is, will you so shape it as to give sufficient incidental protection 
to American interests, or will you try to shape it so as to cripple those great 
interests ? 

I repeat it, What will you put the tariff upon ? Will you protect Ameri- 
can industry and American productions, or select such articles as tea and 
coffee and others that we do not cultivate in this country and in which we 
do not compete, and put it upon them to avoid the protection of American 
industry? I presume not. Then where will you place it? You have to 
collect it, or if not tell me how you will get rid of it, and what substitute you 
will put in its place as a mode of collection of revenue to support the Gov- 
ernment? I apprehend no one will suggest a new plan. Then it seems to 
me that it is proper we should so adjust it as to afford, as far as possible, in- 
cidental protection to every American industry and every American laborer. 
There may be some branch of American labor that it is not in our power to 
protect. There is no tariff now, I believe, imposed upon raw cotton intro- 
duced into this country. There is a very considerable number of pounds 
brought in that now pays no tariff, yet on account of our superior climate, 
soil, manner and quality of production we need very little done in our favor 



712 APPENDIX. 

South by imposing a tariff on cotton to keep it out of our marketp. We 
cannot, I grant, afford equal protection to the labor in all the different fields ; 
but is that a rea^^on why we should not so adjust the tariff as to protect as 
far as we can incidentally the laborers in other pursuits where it is in our 
power? We surely are not antagonistic to American interests. We do not 
prefer the interests and the labor of other countries. If we do not, the pre- 
sumption is, we prefer our own. If we do prefer our own, why not, in the 
collection of the large amount that must he collected, so impose the duty as 
to give incidental protection to the extent of our power to our own ? It 
seems to me that is not only wise statesmanship but common sense and 
patriotism. What other course would be better? I confess it does not 
occur to me. 

I may not understand this question, but I would be very thankful to any 
Senator on either side who will point out to me a better mode of collt-cting 
this tliree hundred and odd million dollars a year that we now collect by 
tariff and internal revenue, or tlie $200,000,000 that we now collt^ct by tariff. 

I do not pretend to say that the present tariff is a just one; I do not be- 
lieve it. 

As to the point in reference to the commission, taking this view of the 
question, it seems to me to be very important that early action should be 
taken to so equalize and adjust the protection given by this$20O,00n,0UO that 
we have to raise every year on imports as to do the most good, to foster in- 
cidentally as far as we can American productions and American industries 
without doing injustice to other American industries. 1 am aware that the 
task is a very delicate one. Tliere has never been a perfect tariff ; I sup- 
pose there never will be; but I presume every senator who has studied this 
question feels anxious to approximate perfection in it as neatly as possible, 
to raise as small an cunount as we can raise tor the support of the (lovern- 
ment, but to raise it as it is at present raised, by a tariff, and in collecting 
that tariff to do what we can incidentally to build up American industry and 
not to crush it. 

Mr. President, I am not prepared to say that the two Houses of Congress 
are not competent to take up this question and dispose of it, but it has been 
here for many years not disposed of. I see no movement that indicates that 
it is likely to be disposed of at this session in any other manner than by a 
commission. With the immense amount of business Congress now lias be- 
fore it I do not think any committee of gentlemen of the two Houses under- 
standing this question can afford to absent themselves from the deliberations 
of their respective Houses long enough to frame and bring in anyihing like 
a perfect tariff bill. When the commission is raised it is simply one to in- 
vestigate and report. It is presimied the President will appoint men of 
known ability, representing tlie different shades of opinion on tliis question. 
He cannot do his duty and act otherwise. Such a commission in some 
months or a year, if you please, if they shall be diligent, taking hold of the 
whole question, can find where the friction is; they can see where it is 
necessary to trim off. 

Mr. Bayard. They can report from time to time. 

Mr. Brown. As the senator from Delaware suggests, they can from time 
to time report. They can take up for instance a particular subject, as cotton 
and articles manufactured of cotton, or sug;(r and molasses, or whatever 
articles they may think best, and if they desire they can report very fre- 
quently upon the question. After they have made their report we are not 
bound by it. The object is simply to give us information on the subject. 
When we get that information it will be proper that we should so use it as 
to promote the public interest, and that we should frame with that informa- 



APPENDIX. 713 

tion in our possession a tariff bill that will approximate as nearly as possi- 
ble justice to all sections and all interests. It is not a heavy expense; it 
takes no time that is not likely to be taken anyhow, as every senator sees. 
Then why not create the commission and let it go to work energetically at 
once, get up the information desired and communicate it to us, and then let 
us act upon it? I see nothing better in tiie present state of things than a 
commission, and on that account I shall support the pending measure. 

As between the proposition of the committee and the proposition of the 
senator from Arkansas, I prefer that of the committee for the reason that I 
do not think at this stage of the session any three senators on this floor, or 
any three members of the House, would give up their legislative duties and 
gointo such an investigation. If it is s;iid : let it, lie over until vacation, 
that is consuming a great deal of time, it seems to me unnecessarily ; and I 
presume there are few senators here, after they have been exhausted as 
much as they will be by the labors of this long session, who would undertake 
to spend the vacation in the investigation of this subject. If you were to 
call for volunteers, Mr. President, I apprehend it would be hard to get a re- 
sponse. Then it seems to me it would be better to appoint men of marked 
ability and disconnected with Congress, representing all the shades of opin- 
ion, and let them get the facts for us, report them to us, and then let us act 
as we think best for our constituents with all the facts before us. 

Mr. Piesident, a good deal has been said here about Democratic platforms, 
and North and South. I see no reason why that should enter into this dis- 
cussion. The Democratic party, to which I am proud to belong, will not 
again, in my opinion, incorporate in its platform a tariff plank that calls for 
"a tariff for revenue only." I believe its platform will be for reveime with 
incidental protection, and as much of it as the amount required to be raised 
when properly distributed will reasonably afford. 

Again, there are many Democratic districts in the United States that are now 
represented by Democratic members of the House, that it would be impossible 
to carry upon'a free-trade platform or a platform of a tariff for revenue only 
without any incidental protection. The senator from South Carolina [Mr. 
Butler] asks me if there are some in Georgia of that kind. I tell hiin very 
frankly I think there are. I am not sure but that there may be some in the 
senator's own State. When you come to removing the tariff from the rice- 
fields of Georgia and the Carolinas and imposing a heavy direct tax on the 
rice plantations-, there is a large class there wlio would demur; when you 
come to removing the tariff entirely from sugar, there is a large class that 
would demur in Louisiana, and Florida, which is going to be one of the 
great sugar States ; when you come to removing the tariff entirely from 
wool, the large class of wool-growers will demur. Therefore, I agree with 
the senator from South Carolina that there aie districts in the South, as well 
as in the North, which the Democracy cannot carry on a platform of a tariff 
for revenue only. On the other hand, from the best information I have, I 
believe there are districts in the West where there are no manufacturing 
establishments, that are strongly Republican, that my Republican friends 
would have difKculty in carrying on a platform to raise money for protection 
for protection's sake. I do" not think they can do it. In other words, the 
people of this country are not ready to adopt either of the extremes. The 
medium ground is the ground they will occupy, and the sooner this whole 
tariff question is eliminated from the politics of the country and dropped 
from the platforms of the two parties, leaving it to the representatives of 
each district, and of each State and Territory to take such course here as 
they think for the best interest of their constituents, the better, in my opin- 
ion, it will be for the whole country. 



7U APPENDIX. 

Entertaining this view, T cannot enter into any party discussion here, for 
I do not think either party is irrevocably committed for the future on this 
question. It is a grave question ; it is a great question ; it is full of embar- 
rassments, and it ought to be the pleasure and pride of every statesman to 
do all he can to solve it in such manner as will best promote the interests of 
the whole American people, north, south, east and west. 



Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, delivered in the 
Senate of the United States, December 14, 1882, on the Bill 
for Civil-Service Reform. Its passage not demanded by the 
people. In its present shape it is either a Delusion or an Act 
of Injustice to a majority of the people of the United States. 

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having under consideration the Bill (S. 
133) to regulate and improve the civil service of tlie United States — 

Mr. Brown said : 

Mr. President : I admit it is very important that there be a better system 
of administration inaugurated than we have had for many years past. T do 
not tliink, however, that the bill now before the senate, if passed, will in- 
augurate any such system. I think it will prove a mere delusion. If we 
pass it we excite popular expectation, and popular expectation will be greatly 
disappointed in the workings of the system. I have heard the British sys- 
tem spoken very highly of; many eulogies passed upon it. It has been said 
by advocates of this bill — probably not on the floor, but again and again out- 
side of the Chamber — that we should adopt something similar to that system, 
if not the exact system itself. 

Now, Mr. President, the forms of the two governments are entirely diifer- 
ent, the circumstances are different, and the surroundings are diiferent. The 
system that may work well there in a limited monarchy, the policy of which 
is to maintain an aristocracy, even a landed aristocracy, is not appropriate to 
a republican form of government like ours. 

In Great Britain the executive is hereditary. The incumbent derives his 
right, not by election of the subjects or citizens of that country, but by birth- 
right. The upper house of the British Parliament is not elected, but those 
who occupy seats there, unlike this body, are dependent upon the accidents 
of birth for them, not upon any special merits or personal qualifications that 
they may have, but the duke takes his seat because he is the son of the for- 
mer duke. ' 

That is not our American system. It is very consonant, however, with that 
system to adopt a civil-service rule that, while the executive is for life and 
hereditary and the higher branch of the legislative department holds for life 
and is hereditary, will make the subordinate officers hold for life. I say it 
is consistent and compatible with that system. It is not so here. Under our 
republican system no man takes anything by hereditary right, but the way is 
open to the son of the humblest peasant within the broad limits of our 
domain, if he has merit and energy and ability, to occupy the highest posi- 
tion in the Government. Our theory is that men are to be promoted on 
account of merit and qualifications. It may not always be carried out — of 
course it cannot always be — but that is the nature of the system and that is 
the general practice. It is compatible, therefore, with that system to leave 
the changes in the legislative department, in the executive department, and in 
every departmentexcept the judicial to the frequent mutations of parties and 
to the supposed merits of the competitors who compete for the prizes. In 



APPENDIX. 715 

all the departments, legislative and executive, qualification is supposed to be 
looked to. Election of representatives and the higher officers is the general 
idea. Why in the face of that should we establish for the subordinate offi- 
cers in the diiferent executive departments and in all the larger offices within 
the limit of the United States a system of lifetime tenure for the very large 
class of persons who fill those places ? I say it is not compatible with our 
very form of government. It is one step in the direction of the establish- 
ment of an aristocracy in this country, the establishment of another privi- 
leged class. 

It may be said, however, and I believe that sentiment was uttered only a 
few days ago, though not in the language I use, probably, that it takes away 
from persons who hold these positions the inducement to be active politi- 
cians. In some cases that might be the working of it ; but bear in mind, 
Mr. President, it leaves it in the power of every one of them to become an 
active politician, and if the spirit of the system is carried out as claimed by 
the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] the officers can be as active as 
they choose on one side, and one side alone, and run no risk of losing their 
positions. It builds up a powerful class supported out of the Treasury of the 
United States, out of the taxes of the people, and places in their hands the 
power, if they choose to exercise it — and there is a great deal of human 
nature in man, so that they probably would exercise it — the power to do 
much to control the future rulers and destinies of this Government. 

I am not very fresh from my reading of Roman history ; but as I recollect 
it there was a period in the history of that government when it became 
necessary to establish the Praetorian guard to protect the ruler against the 
populace. It would naturally enough have been claimed that that guard 
would take no part in the politics of Rome, and yet in the workings of time 
that Praetorian guard became the master of Rome and assumed control of 
the government. As they protected the sovereign, they dictated wiio should 
be the sovereign, and for a large enough amoimt of money they would dis- 
place one sovereign to make room for another. How do we know that we 
may not build up a similar class here when we build up a lifetime aristoc- 
racy in office, or when we establish a lifetime tenure of office? It is con- 
trary to the veiy genius and spirit of our Government. 

My honorable friend from Ohio [Mr. Pendleton], who has this bill in 
char^ce, stated yesterday that the bill did not make any provision preventing 
removals from office. I do not find that it does in language, but the honor- 
able senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] tells us to-day that tliat is the 
spirit of it; that that is what is contemplated, and that it is not likely that 
an executive officer would venture to make removals, acting under this bill, 
unless for cause, as misconduct in office and the like. 

That is what the movers of this bill look to. I do not say that it is what 
the senator from Ohio looks to, or that such is his purpose ; but as I under- 
stand it, it is the purpose of those who lead on the other side of this Cham- 
ber and bring to this bill its most efficient support. But that is not all — 

Mr. Hawley. I do not like to interrupt; I refrain from it as much as I 
can ; but I desire to call the senator's attention to the fact that those who 
have spoken for the bill affirm in the most vigorous and unlimited manner 
the right and duty of the Executive to remove at pleasure. I will not take 
it away from the Executive. I do not see how the Praetorian guard can hurt 
him much if he can take the Prastorian guard by the ear and lead them out 
any morning he pleases. 

Mr. Brown. Then I a.sk what is the value of this bill ? It is the sheerest 
humbug and the sheerest deception and nonsense. If we are to go through 
all this great ado before the country of passing a civil-service bill, which it 



716 APPENDIX. 

is said is so much demanded by popular sentiment at this time, if we have 
,to satisfy. popular clamor by the enactment of a civil-service bill, what a de- 
ception, what a fraud upon the people to tender them this bill ! If there be 
really in the popular mind a demand for any such bill as is usually termed 
civil-service reform, it is a bill to make permanent the positions of those who 
hold olBces, to confine removals to cm use alone. The class who sisk for it, I 
think, are a very small minority of the American people. At tlie same time 
they ask for it in that spirit and with that purpose, and they would consider 
themselves mocked if this bill is passed containing no protection for the in- 
cumbents against removal without cause. What good does it do as a meas- 
ure of reform if the power of remov;il is unlimited and without cause at the 
mere will or whim of the appointing power? The civil-service refoiniers 
who are most clamorous for action, and who are in earnest about tlie matter, 
would consider such a measure, if that is all it means, as a trick, a sham, a 
delusion. 

But it requires a competitive examination, say the senators on the other 
side, before you put a man into office. There again the bill is a cheat and a 
mockery. It does no such thing in spirit and substance. For fear there 
miiiht come a day when a Democratic executive would administer the affairs 
of this Government, and that day might not be very distant, there is a care- 
ful provision in this bill that it shall wppiy only to the lowest class who are 
to hold office. There shall be a competitive examination for the lowest grade 
only; that is free to all; and the senator from Massachusetts who took his 
seat a lew minutes ago very earnestly stated that that was one of the strong 
features in it. 

Now, I believe that there is a very large number of employes in the De- 
partments at present, occupying different positions in them, some of them 
high positions, who are not fit tor those places, morally, intellectually, or in 
any other manner; but the charmed circle in not to be disturbed. If there 
chances to be one of the lower clerkships vacant, then the doors are thrown 
wide open by this bill and every American citizen may come up and com- 
pete for it. It will not do to go higher than that, for too many Democrats 
might get in. You Democrats may come up and compete for the lowest 
clerkships that are to be filled; but if a vacancy occurs above that, then the 
Republican employes and officers already in office, and they alone, can apply 
for the advancement or promotion. That is the civil-service reform that this 
bill gives to the country; that is the share that the Democratic party gets 
in it. I repeat it, under the provisions of this bill tlie competition is only 
general for the lowest office that can become vacant. There a Democrat 
stands a chance to get in this lowest position, but if fifty vacancies occur 
above it only the present incumbents, the Republican office-holders, can com- 
pete for the promotion. That is what it holds out to the Democratic party. 
That is our share in its benefits. 

Now, I am going to talk plainly to Democrats. It is not required for us to 
mince wonls here, for the country very well understands this whole question. 
The Republican party have had the offices of this Governuient for the last 
twenty-two years consecutively. The Executive has been Republican, and 
they have had the distribution of the offices and places. They still have it. 
True an avalanche has swept over the country, and with it the strongest con- 
demnation of the practices of that party. It is true this was in the off year, 
and not the Presidential year ; but prudent, sagacious men on the other side of 
the Chamber understand this as well as we do on this side. If we make no 
great blunders — and I know I have heard it said on the other side tiiat they 
rely a great deal on Democratic blunders, for we sometimes make them — un- 
less the Democracy is guilty of great folly on some important questions there 



APPENDIX. 717 

can be, to my mind, and I think to the minds of senators generally, but little 
doubt that tlie next president of this republic will be a Democrat, 

Jam speaking now to Democrats. How do you go into that campaign? 
Suppose you put my honorable and worthy friend from Ohio [Mr. Pendleton] 
or my honorable friend from Delaware [Mr. Bayard], or any other one of the 
prominent and able gentlemen mentioned for the place, in nomination for 
the Presidency, and you go before tiie Democratic masses of the United States 
and tell them that you are handicapped ; that all the offices that amount to 
anything, the higher and more important places, are already disposed of. 
'• Disposed of how?" they will inquire. "Why, the Republican party have 
had them for twenty-two years, and seeing that there was a probability 
of a change of administration " — to put it in no stronger light — " they 
have hedged, and they have taken good care of themselves ; they have passed 
a civil-service bill and Democrats have helped thetn to enact it; and we have 
it on the statute-book now that there is no Democrat to be put into office in 
any of the executive departments except in the lowest positions. Above 
them the Rupublicans alone may compete with each other for the places; 
but there is no chance for a Democrat." 

In a free republican government like this those who belong to both par- 
ties fight for office as well as principle. Do you believe that the Democratic 
leaders in all the different States would work with the same energy, and zeal, 
and ability as they would if you held out to them a chance of a change of the 
offices with the change of the Executive? Jt would be contrary to all the 
history of the past to expect any such work. 

I know it has been replied to this that the Democratic candidate would 
not likely have so strong opposition fiom the Republican office-holders in 
office. 1 have no faith in that. The Republican office-holders are usually 
ardent, true Republicans; they believe in the principles and practices of their 
party, and they want to promote and perpetuate them, and they believe that 
that party has a sort of divine right to the offices of this Government, and 
they will be as true to their party in the campaign as the needle is to the 
pole, while you deaden the ener^jies of the Democratic leaders from the low- 
est to the highest by taking away any inducements you would otherwise hold 
out to them to fight with the view of reaping any of the rewards of success. 
They would vote ihe ticket patriotically as true Democrats, but they would 
not exert themselves as they would do if they believed there would be a gen- 
eral change or even a change of one-half the persons holding the offices. 

I say, then, take it any way you will, I do not see, with great deference to 
my friend from Ohio, why at this time a Democrat should vote for this bill; 
certainly not without important amendments, that destroy the aristocracy of 
Republican office-holding that this bill provides for. Will Democrats vote 
for it when it closes the doors of the competitive examination against Demo- 
crats for every position except the very lowest ? I do not wonder that our 
Republicans friends are very unanimous, and very anxious at this time for 
the passage of this bill. The only wonder I have is that it has taken them 
so long to reach this point. The first four years when they were in power 
were years of war. It was then no time to discuss civil-service. 

Perhaps the next two or three years ought not to be counted, during the 
stormier period of reconstruction ; but take ofl'six years from twenty-two and 
it leaves about sixteen years of peace, when senators and representatives 
were in condition here to consider the best interests of the whole country. 
It has taken them sixteen years to reach the point of, as they consider, a real 
civil-service reform. 

Well, now, to show the humbuggery in this whole affair, there was a very 
good civil-service statute put upon the book some years ago when General 



718 APPENDIX. 

Grant was president, and the law was not only enacted but the machinery 
was provided. The three commissioners — 1 believe three was the nuinber — 
were appointed. As is contemplated by the act, they went to work ; civil- 
service reform, it was said, was going to be given to the country then. Broad 
plenary powers were given to the President. 

There were some very patriotic and able gentlemen, too, on the commission. 
One of them was from my own State, Judge D. A. Walker, an honored name, 
a worthy gentleman, a true Republican. They worked and did, no doubt, 
the best they knew how; and what real substantial reform did the country 
see? It became so much of a mockery that Congress in a few years after- 
ward refused to appropriate tlie salaries of the commissioners. It was seen 
to be a deception and a fraud in practice, whatever might have been intended 
and however sincere President Grant might have been in his purpose to carry 
it out in good faith. It failed. It was an inglorious failure; and matters 
went on as matters will go on in this Government. 

This is a republican government; it is democratic in form, and you have 
to change the nature of the Government and change human nature also be- 
fore vou will be able to adopt in practice here any Utopian theories about 
civil-service. 

I do not laud the sentiment mentioned by the honorable senator from 
Massachusetts, which he attributes to Mr. Marcy, that " to the victors belong 
the spoils." He said it was rather coarse. Piobably it was; but yet to a 
very great extent it has been the system practiced from the first day of the 
inauguration of this Government; and whatever you may put upon the 
statute-book it will be the system practiced until its funeral knell is sounded. 
And no party in this Government ever practiced the spoils system with more 
zeal and energy than the Republican party has. "To the victors belong the 
spoils," has been its constant motto in practice ; and still would be, if impend- 
ing defeat did not stare it in the face. There maybe some reforms, some of 
the worst features may be cut off; but in the main the Executive who conies 
into power when his party has long been deprived of power will find a way, 
and the heads of departments under him will find a way to give to his fol- 
lowers the benefit of the offices or a large proportion of them. 

While General Grant had the power with a commission to inaugurate civil- 
service reform — and I suppose he doubtless did all he could in good faith to 
do it, for he seemed intent on it — yet the heads of departments and the sub- 
ordinate heads found ready ways of evading it, and you may put this on the 
statute-book — 

Mr. George. May I interrupt the senator from Georgia to ask a question? 

Mr. Brown. Certainly. 

Mr. George. If it be true, as the senator from Georgia suggests, that a 
new President and new heads of departments can find a way, notwithstand- 
ing the statutes that we may put on our statute-books, to reward their fol- 
lowers, their supporters, then 1 ask, in anticipation (as the senator seems to 
think we are about to have one) of a Democratic success in 1884, how can 
this measure prevent a Democratic president and Democratic heads of De- 
partments from rewarding their followers? 

Mr. Brown. 1 answer the senator from Mississippi as I answered the 
senator from Connecticut a while ago. He will not be restrained from doing 
it, and that shows the miserable fraud and humbuggery of this measure. In 
effect it will amount to nothing, and cannot amount to anything. 

Mr. George. Then will the senator from Georgia allow me to say that it 
is not a fair argument to excite the prejudice of the Democratic party of this 
country against this measure on the ground that its effect will be to prevent 
a Democratic president from appointing Democrats to office? 



APPENDIX. 719 

Mr. Brown. I argued that proposition on the theory of the advocates of 
the bill, that if you can carry out your policy, that will be the effect; but I 
say you cannot do it; and then you are engaged in that which is worse than 
idle when you are here enacting this law. 

Mr. George. Will the senator allow me to say that it is the statute and 
not the theory of its advocates that is to have force in this country. 

Mr. Brown. In fact it is the practice of those who execute the statute that 
has force in this country. That is what it is. You may put on the statute- 
book laws as stringent as you please to make them, and if popular sentiment 
and the sentiment of those in power do not approve those laws, they will be 
evaded in the execution and will be a mockery ; and so this will be. 

I say the argument is legitimate, that, give the measure all you claim for 
it, then as Democrats you should not vote to handicap your candidate, and 
you should not vote to retain in office for life those who have held the posi- 
tions for so long a time, and who are your political enemies. But if it is not 
true, that it will be executed or that it amounts to anything, then this is a 
vain business in which we are engaged and we had better spend our time in 
something that is of some practical utility. 

Tlie preamble of this bill promises very finely. I desire to read it: 

" Whereas common justice requires that, so far as practicable, all citizens 
duly qualified shall be allowed equal opportunities, on grounds of personal 
fitness, for securing appointments, employment, and promotion in the subor- 
dinate civil service of the United States." 

That is very broad. It would seem to be a very good doctrine. But I con- 
fess I was struck when I looked further over and saw that in the very teeth 
of that recital of the proper principle the competitive examinations are lim- 
ited to the lowest grade of offices. That means, I suppose, that it is justice 
in case of the lowest grade to give everybody a chance; but above that the 
benefit must be confined to the inner circle, those who have held office a long 
time and want to continue to hold it; in other words, to Kepublicaus. 

Again the preamble says : 

" Whereas justice to the public likewise requires that the Government shall 
have the largest choice among those likely to answer the requirements of the 
public service." 

That is good doctrine, but the body of the act is in the teeth of it. The 
Government should have the largest choice among those likely to answer the 
requirements as to qualifications for office, and yet you limit the choice of 
the Government in the body of the bill to the lowest grade. 

Again : 

" Whereas justice, as well as economy, efficiency, and integrity in the pub- 
lic service, will be promoted by substituting open and uniform competitive 
examinations for the examinations heretofore held in pursuance of the stat- 
utes of 1853 and 1855." 

Economy, efficiency, and the integrity of the service will be promoted, 
says the preamble, by substituting competitive examinations, and yet the 
body of the bill denies the competitive examination, so far as the public gen- 
erally are concerned, to all persons except for the lowest grade of offices. 

But reference has been made here to the letter and doctrines of Mr. Jeffer- 
son on tills question. He has been cited as authority, and he is very high 
authority on any subject that he ever handled. There are certain expres- 
sions in his letter to Mr. Lincoln that are warped to mean that removals 
should take place for cause only, and that qualifications and fitness alone 
should be looked to. Mr. Jefferson made very important qualifications of 
that doctrine in that letter. I propose to read a portion of it. He speaks of 
the action of the leaders of the Federal party at the time, and says : (See 



720 APPENDIX. 

his letter to Levi Lincoln, dated 25th of October, 1802, vol. 4 Jefferson's 
works, paoje 450.) 

"Tliey are trying slanders now which nothing could prompt but a gall 
wliich blinds their judgments as wt-Jl as their consciences, 1 shall take no 
other revenge than by a steady pursuit of economy and peace, and by tlie es- 
tablishment; oi: Republican principles in substance and in lorm, to sink Fed- 
eralism into an abyss from which tliere shall be no resurrection for it. I still 
think our original idea as to office is best: that is, depend for the obtaining 
a just partici|tation on deaths, resignations, and delinquencies." 

But Mr. Jefferson says more than that: 

" This will least affect the tranquillity of the people and prevent their giv- 
ing in to the suggestion of our enemies, that ours has been a contest for office, 
not for principle. This is rather a slow operation " — and if he had been 
coufined to the lowest grade of office alone he would have thought it a great 
deal slower — " but it is sure if we pursue it steadily, which, however, has 
not been done with the undeviating resolution I could have wished." 

Mr, .Jefferson only waited for death«, resignations, and delinquencies. 
When these came a Republican, as the Democrats were then called, was to 
be put into office. He declares that was very slow. And what does this ,bill 
do? It waits in the same manner for deaths, resignations, or delinquencies, 
but only in the lower grades. It does not give us the chance of putting in a 
Democrat in every grade that becomes vacant, because the competitive ex- 
amination mtist be from those in office at the time; for all above the lowest 
grade. It confines us to the lowest grade. What would Mr. Jefferson have 
said if there had been an attempt to confine him to the lowest grade in fill- 
ing offices where vacancies occurred in the manner already designated? He 
would h;ive thought it was a great deal slower than the slowness of which he 
complained. 

A>;ain, he said : 

" To these means of obtaining a just share in the transaction of the public 
business shall be added one other, to wit, removal for electioneering ac- 
tivity." 

What would he have said to the hundreds of clerks who are given time 
when elections cume on to go to Ohio and the extreme limits, wherever tliere 
is a Republican State, to take an active part in controlling the State elections? 
Would he not have swept the last one of them from office? 

He adds : 

"Or open and industrious opposition to the principles of the present Gov- 
ernment, legislative, and executive." 

If tliey took an active part in politics against him, or if they were open in 
opposition to the principles of the party in power administering the Govern- 
ment they were to go by the board. Hear him again: 

" Every officer of the Government may vote at elections according to his 
conscience ; but we should betray the cause committed to our care w ere we to 
permit the influence of official patronage to be used to overthrow that cause. 
Your present situation will enable you to judge of prominent offenders in 
your State, in the case of the present election." 

" Prominent offenders in your State." That is, those who had taken a 
prominent part against his party in Connecticut. That was what he meant, 
and it would be left to Mr. Lincoln to judge of those who had been promi- 
nent in that way. Then lie adds: 

" I pray you to seek them, to mark them, to be quite sure of your ground, 
that we may commit no error or wrong, and leave the rest to me." 

He was President and said, " Seek them ; mark them ; be quite sure of 
your ground, and then leave the rest " to him ; he would take care of it. 



APPENDIX. 721 

Again he says : 

" 1 have been urged to remove Mr. Whittemore, the surveyor of Glouces- 
ter, on grounds of neglect of duty and industrious opposition. Yet no facts 
are so distinctly charged as to mnke the step sure which we should take in 
this. AVill you take the trouble to satisfy yourself on this point? I tliink it 
not amiss that it should be known that we are determined to remove oflBcers 
who are active or open-mouthed against the Government, by which I mean 
the Legislature as well as the Executive." 

Mark his language. He thought it not amiss that it should be known that 
they were determined to remove from office those who had bet-n active and 
open-mouthed agaiust the Government, whether in tiie legislative or the ex- 
ecutive department. That was the sort of civil service that Mr. Jefferson ad- 
vocated ; that was the advice he gave to his friend Lincoln of Connecticut; 
and mind you, he says, " Mark them, and leave the rest to me." And so it 
will be, no matter what civil-service bill you may pass; whenever the Presi- 
dent and the heads of Departments desire to do so they will mark tliem, and 
they will find a way of getting rid of them. 

Now, I\lr. President, one word as to the natural inherent justice of this 
case aside from all political views of it, or any partisan view ; what is right, 
what is just. According to this preamble it is right and just that men should 
take their chances in procuring office, and have a fair chance in accordance 
with their ability, their intelligence, and their fitness for the place; all tax- 
payers and all citizens should stand upon grounds of equality, taking chances 
alike, with no favored class and no proscribed class. 

What is the state of things in this Kepublican Government of ours ? 
There are now, it is said, about 55,000,000 people; there are aboiit llOOOO 
officers and persons holding employment under the Government, and those 
places are held by Republicans almost invariably. 

It is true the senator from Massachusetts told us a while ago that the 
President of the United States now stands pledged to sign and support a 
measure for civil-service reform. Why does he stand soV What new-born 
idea has put him on that platform? 1 speak kindly of him personally, for I 
have great regard for him; but his political course we have aright to discuss. 
What administration, at any time since the foundation of this Government, 
has ever been more proscriptive, so far as appointments to office are concerned ? 
How many' Democrats has he left in, holding offices of any importance? 
Some of his predecessors were more liberal on that subject. But whvn he came 
in 1 presume those having influence required of him that he should make a 
clean sweep, and he has made it as near as any administration ever can. 

What, then, is the modest proposition here? It is to give to the Kepub- 
lican party, according to the theory of the advocates of the bill, especially the 
tlieory of the senator from Massachusetts, a permanency in these offices. 
What is the Republican party of this country? It is a minority of the peo- 
ple of this country. lu 1876 Samuel J. Tilden was elected President of 
these United States, and he got a popular majority of about 250,000. la 
1880 James A. Garfield was legally and constitutionally elected President of 
these United States, but he was elected by a plurality only; adding the Dem- 
ocratic vote and the Greenback vote together, he was beaten on the popular 
vote by over 300,000 majority. 

The Republican party, then, are a minority of the people of the United 
States, and yet they hold to-day almost all the offices connected with the 
Government of the United States. Is it right, Mr. President, as a naked 
question of justice, equity, and fair play, that this state of things should 
continue? They have had this advantage for twenty-two years. How long 
has this minority a divine right to govern this country? 
46 



722 APPENDIX. 

No, if we are to have a just and equitable civil-service reform let it be a 
reform of the abuses of the party that has so long wielded the power of the 
Govei'nment, and let that reform be put upon the basis that in future com- 
petitive examinations when you ascertain the two highest the Democrat 
shall be preferred until one-half the office-holders are Democrats. I can see 
an equity in that; not if you confine it, however, as this bill does, to the 
lowest grade of officers ; but if you will throw all the offices in these depart- 
ments open to competition when vacancies occur, and then take the two 
highest and give the preference to the Democrat until the Democrats have 
half the offices, there is something like a just and equitable civil service. 
You would have to give the Greenback party some portion, but I am willing 
to meet this question anywhere upon the equity and justice of the case. I do 
not fear to go before the populace upon it and say that I do not favor this 
policy of civil service, because of its injustice, its inequality, and its want of 
equity. The Democrats perform their part of the duties and bear their part 
of the burdens of this Government; they pay their portion of the taxes; 
they do their part of the military service ; in a word, they do faithfully the 
duties incumbent upon citizens. 

Why is it then that they should be proscribed not only for the long period, 
when it has already been so, but for all future time? Why are they not 
worthy of their part in the patronage and offices of the Government if they 
bear their part in the burdens of the Government? Will some senator who 
is so anxious for this civil-service reform please tell me why it is that the 
Democrats have no equity, no rights as a class? I know it has become popu- 
lar to prate about civil-service reform. We have had it in President's mes- 
sages and in reports of heads of the departments until it is in everybody's 
mouth, and yet how delusive. In practice it amounted to nothing from the 
very commencement, and now this bill proposes to make it an engine of in- 
equality, injustice, and wrong to the larger half of the tax-payers and voters 
and people of the United States. 

I will give my sanction to no such measure, and if no other man in this 
Chamber votes against it I will pride myself in recording my vote against a 
measure that proscribes a majority of the people of the United States, with 
which majority I act, and drives them from public positions for almost a 
generation to come, opens the way to the lowest grades that we may come 
into the lowest positions only, and leaves the balance to those already in, 
who are all Republicans. I treat it on its equities, I treat it on its justice, 
and denounce it as unfair, as fraught with wrong, injustice, and inequality, 
and I ask any one who can to defend it as a principle of equity. If the 
Democracy had been twenty two years in power, and had the control of the 
offices and patronage of this Government, I say to my colleagues on this side 
you would hear a different voice from the other side, in my opinion ; I think 
they would see, and have no difficulty in reaching the conclusion, that the bill 
was unjust, unequal, and ought not to pass. 

I have noticed ever since [ have had the honor to occupy a seat on this 
floor, that the Republicans have touched this question a little tenderly, and 
it has been kept before the popular mind in a very gentle manner all the 
while, by messages and reports, and so on ; but when it came right down to 
action they were a little dilatory about it. But since the elections of 
November last their energies have been quickened, their convictions have 
been strengthened, and to-day they are not only almost persuaded, but they 
are full converts to the doctrine that civil-service reform is imperatively 
necessary, and necessary just at this particular time. 

I do not blame them. I do not see that their course is what it ought to 
be, if we go on the principles of justice and equality; but as a party measure. 



APPENDIX. 723 

if we will sit here and permit them to enact such a law, I cannot blame them 
for doing it. The Democrats will not hold them responsible, they will hold 
us responsible for it ; and the Republicans, looking to the action of their 
senators, no doubt will applaud their energy and their skill in providing for 
their office-holders for a lifetime in the future, just as the period has conje 
when there is danger that they may have to leave. 

But there is another provision in connection with this bill which may re- 
quire some attention. The country has been greatly shocked by the prac- 
tices of the Republican party, by their levying assessments upon subordinates 
in the various offices of the Government to be used for political purposes, 
and both sides seem now to agree on the propriety of enacting stringent laws 
against such a practice in future. In other words, we propose in future to 
make it highly penal, if not a penitentiary crime, for any officer or commit- 
tee to do what the Republican committee did in the last campaign. And 
while I deny that the great majority of the people of the United States have 
either clamored or called for a civil-service measure of the character con- 
templated by this act, I admit that there is a general demand for the enact- 
ment of a law to punish, and punish severely, the practice of soliciting and 
virtually compelling donations of part of their salaries from subordinates in 
the different departments. But why pass a civil-service bill of the character 
of this to get that provision into it? Why not meet the question fairly and 
squarely, like bold, sensible men, and amend the penal code of the United 
States by the enactment of a law providing ample punishment for those who 
practice this system in future? No civil-service bill is necessary. It wants a 
penal statute to make the infamous practice a high misdemeanor, if not a 
felony. Those who claim that the people at the last election not only cqji- 
demned the corrupt methods and practices of the Republican party ; but 
that they demand the so-called civil-service reform contemplated by this bill 
as a remedy, make a great mistake. The corrupt practices have been con- 
demned. The people have spoken in thunder tones of condemnation and 
denunciation, which can neither be ignored nor misunderstood. They de- 
nounce the admitted malpractice of Republican officials, and demand a 
remedy. But what remedy ? Not that we pass a law to continue the perpe- 
trators of these great wrongs in office for life or a terra of years. The party 
to which they belong has held power twenty-two years. It is time there was 
a change. And the people demand as a remedy for existing abuses, a 
change of officials. They demand that the unfaithful public servant, whose 
maladministration cannot be denied, be hurled from power, and that their 
places be filled by honest, capable men, who will reform the public service by 
a return to the purer and better methods practiced by the fathers of the re- 
public ; who will cut off all surplus and unnecessary officials, clerks, and em- 
ployes ; and all extravagant waste of the public treasure, which is wrung by 
taxation from the labor of the people. 

But, Mr. President, I am aware that I have already occupied the floor too 
long. Before taking my seat, however, I desire to announce certain amend- 
ments that at the proper time, whenever I can get an opportunity, I propose 
to offer to this bill. On line 22, section 2, page 3, I find this language : 

"Third, that original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall be at 
the lowest grade, and appointments thereto in the departments at Washing- 
ton shall be apportioned, as nearly a'^ practicable, among the several States and 
Territories and the District of Columbia, upon the basis of population ascer- 
tained at the last preceding census." 

There I shall move to strike out the words " shall be at the lowest grade," 
so as to read : o 



724 APPENDIX. 

" That original entrance to the public service aforesaid and appointments 
thereto in the departments at Washington shall be apportioned, etc." 

Then I find, on page 4, section 2, line 30, this language : 

" Fifth, that promotions shall be from the lower grades to the higher on 
the basis of merit and competition." 

I shall move to strike that out entirely. 

Then on page 10. in section 7, I find this language: 

" That after the expiration of six months from the passage of this act no 
officer or clerk shall be appointed, and no person shall be employed to enter 
or be promoted in either of the said classes now existing, or that may be ar- 
ranged hereunder pursuant to said rules, until he lias passed an examination, 
or is shown to be specially exempted from such examination in conformity 
herewith." 

There I shall move to add : 

" Whenever a vacancy occurs in either of said classes it shall be filled with 
one of tlie two persons who stood highest on the competitive examination, and 
the selection for appointment shall not be confined to the persons in the office, 
or who at the time hold positions under the department in wliich the vacancy 
occurs, but other persons, citizens, desiring the position shall, on application, 
be permitted to participate in the competitive examination, and shall receive 
the appointment if the examination shows that they possess qualifications supe- 
rior to the competitors who may be in position at the tinse of the examination." 

In other words my object is to get rid of that feature which confines the 
competitive examinations to the applicants for the lowest class, ^^'hy should 
not a person occupying no position under the Government, who is eminently 
qualified, have a right to apply for a vacancy in a higher class? 1 know no 
reason except that he is a Democrat, and he must not interfere with the in- 
ner circle or with the political power of it. I want to open tlie door wide, if 
we have competitive examinations, and let every citizen who feels that he 
has claims superior to an inferior man now in position go and compete for 
the prize, and if he wins it, though he be a Democrat, let him have it. I 
think this is right. I do not feel that 1 should do my duty if I were to sit 
here and see tliis bill pass without doing all in my power to see that justice 
is done to the larger half of the people of this country in giving them an 
actual chance to compete for these positions. The bill, as it now stands, 
does not give it. I seek to amend it so that all who feel that they are really 
qualified shall have a chance for the offices. 

I know there are stringent provisions in the bill about any one doing any- 
thing to promote the claim of one applicant or injure the claim of another. 
There is simply nothing in that. The head of a department may give 
stringent orders to have everything go right, but he has men under him who 
have been there probably for twenty years, shrewd, sharp managing fellows, 
and they will find a way to get the preference given by examiners to a favorite 
who is wanted by them and against those they do not want. You will never 
purify this service until you drive these old rats from the malt. You will 
never purify it as long as those who have had control of things for a long 
time wield the power. They have had it long enough. If the Democrats 
come into power let all the worst of them retire. We have plenty of men 
every way their equals, socially, morally, intellectually, educationally, in any 
way you may put it. Why, then, should Democrats take a position in favor 
of proscribing men of that class of our own party, and keep in power those of 
the other party who have for so long a time been in office? 

I do not know, Mr. President, whether there is any other amendment 
pending at the present time that has preference over those I have mentioned 
or not. If there is not — 



APPENDIX. 725 

The presiding officer (Mr. Morg-an in the cbair). The amendment of the 
senator from Iowa [Mr. Allison] is pending. 

Mr. Brown. Then I give notice that I shall propose these amendments 
when the}' are in order. 

Mr. Ilawley. Before the senator passes from the point he has been just 
discussing, I should like to make a suggestion to him in the form of a ques- 
tion. Tiiere are in the departments quite a considerable number of Demo- 
cratic employes and cleiks, and some of them have been there ten, fifteen, 
twenty, twenty-five years. Now, I wish to know whether their continuance 
in the service with the testimonial in their favor that it has been under an 
adverse Administration because of their admirable record, whether the fact 
that they have been a long time in the service is so much against them that 
the senator would turn them out also? 

Mr. Brown. I would put them on their merits, Mr. President. If their 
practices were clean and their conduct right, if they had behaved themselves 
well, I would not turn them out simply because they held office under Re- 
publicans, and I would not probably turn out every Republican there who 
held an office and showed a fair and clean record ; but I would do this : I 
would so amend this bill that anyone outside who was the superior of either 
of them might come in and compete for the place, and if he took it by virtue 
of his merits and his qualifications over either a Democrat or a Republican I 
would let him do so. This would be true civil-service reform. Both parties 
must be fairly represented in the offices before any such enactment will meet 
with public favor or produce any beneficial results. 

If my amendments are not acted on this afternoon, I shall ask that they 
be printed and laid on the table by the morning session. 



Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, delivered in the 
Senate of the United States, January 8, 1883, on the Rights 
OP the Citjzens of the late Confederate States to thk 
$10,000,000 NOW IN THE Treasury, which is the Proceeds op 
THE Sale of thkir Cotton and other Property seized by the 
Agents *of the Government, the Effect of the President's 
Pardon on their Rights considered, etc. 

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the bill 
(H. R. 084) to afford assistance and relief to Congress and the Executive departments 
in their investigation of claims and demands against the Government. 

Mr. Brown said ; 

Mr. President : I desire to give notice first of an amendment which I shall 
offer to the bill whenever it is in order to consider it. I wish to have the 
amendment read : 

The Principal Legislative Clerk. It is proposed to add as an additional 
section to the bill the following : 

Sec. — . That the right of action in said Court of Claims under the provisions of 
the captured and abandoned property acts, where the money arising from the sale 
of the property is now in the Treasury of the United States, be, and the same hereby 
is, revived and extended for two years from and after the passage of this act, includ- 
ing all cases of seizure under said act, or under color thereof, without regard to any 
statute of limitations; and all claims for such property not filed in said court within 
that period shall be forever barred: Provided, however, That where any of such claims 
have been tiled before the Secretary of the Treasury, and proof taken in relation 
thereto, under the provisions of the fifth section of the act of May 18, 1872, the proof 
so taken, whether upon the part of the Government or the claimant, where it is made 



726 APPENDIX. 

to appear by affidavit that the witnesses are dead or cannot be found, shall be used 
in evidence in the said Court of Claims as though taken in pursuance of the rules of 
said court, and the Secretary of the Treasury, upon the call of said court, on the 
motion of either party, shall transmit said proofs and all the papers in the case to the 
said Court of Claims. 

I think the bill before the senate to refer the large number of claims of 
different character.^, involving investigations of questions of fact, to be 
audited at least by the Court of Claims, for I believe that is about the effect 
of the bill, is a good one in its main features. 

I do not approve, however, of the section that requires of the suitor in 
that court, or the claimant, any proof as to his loyalty during the war. I 
deny, under the Constitution and laws and the amnesty proclamations of the 
President, that any such proof can be required of the claimant who did par- 
ticipate in the rebellion. That question has been before the Supreme Court 
of the United States again and again, and that court has decided the iden- 
tical question, as I understand it, that a claimant who did participate in the 
rebellion, and who has been pardoned by the President of the United States, 
may prefer his claim in the Court of Claims without the allegation or proof 
that he did not participate in tiie rebellion. 

Therefore I think that provision of the bill now before the senate is ob- 
jectionable in a twofold sense : one, that it would be a violation of the Con- 
stitution, of the proclamations of the President, and the laws as they now 
stand; and another, that it tends all the while to keep up the distinction be- 
tween those who were once engaged in rebellion, as it is now termed, and citi- 
zens who were not so engaged, though all are now loyal, all are enjoying alike 
the privileges of the Government, and each sharing his part in its burdens. 

Mr. Cameron, of Wisconsin. Will it interrupt the senator if I ask him a 
question? 

Mr. Brown. No, not if you confine it to a question. This is a subject 
that we differ, probably, a good deal about, and I would prefer to proceed 
with my ai'gument without too many interruptions, though I am not captious 
about it. 1 will hear the senator. 

Mr. Cameron, of Wisconsin. Has the senator ever looked at the qtiestion 
in this view : that the decisions of the Supreme Court to which he refers had 
reference to a court that had jurisdiction to render a judgment in the case ? 
Under this bill the Court of Claims has not authority to render judgment, 
but merely to find the facts and report the facts to Congress; and in the 
cases that are referred to that court by departments of the Government they 
are required to find the facts and the law. Suppose Congress, instead of 
referring these cases to the Court of Claims, had said, " We will refer them 
to the Attorney-General and impose upon him the duty of examining them 
and reporting the facts to Congress," would or would not that be constitu- 
tional, and would not Congress have a right to refer any class of cases that 
it pleased to the Attorney-(ieneral if it saw fit to do so? 

Mr. Frye. If the senator will pardon me one moment, as I understood 
the amendment offered by him it goes the full length; it gives full and com- 
plete jurisdiction to the Court of Claims in the abandoned property claims. 
That is as I understand the amendment. 

Mr. Brown. I prefer to proceed with my argument in my own way. I 
think I shall cover all the ground, before I take my seat, that senators have 
called my attention to, and it rather breaks the thread of my argument and 
disjoints the different propositions that I may have connected together to 
have to submit to frequent intei'ruptions. As I say, I am always willing to 
be interrupted if it is thoujiht important by any senator, but I shall cover 
the ground mentioned by both the senators before I take my seat. 



APPENDIX. 727 

Now, Mr. President, before I proceed further with the discussion, I desire 
to remark that at the opening of the last session of Congress there were two 
funds lying in the Treasury of the United States, each in amount about 
$10,000,000, to which the Government of the United States set up no just or 
equitable claim, but the authorities of the United States admitted that the 
money belonged to private individuals or firm.-i, persons in legal contempla- 
tion, either artificial or to natural persons. 

One of these funds was known as the Geneva award fund. We had held 
a convention with Great Britain, and had agreed upon an arbitration of ihe 
mutual claims and charges that each government had against the other, 
especially pertaining to matters growing out of the action and conduct of 
the Confederate cruisers during the war. 

The award given to the United States by the arbitrators was, as we 
thought, a liberal one — fifteen and a half million dollars. Something over 
five millions, or from five to seven millions, of that amount paid all the 
claims that the loyal people of the United States, as they were termed and 
known during the war, the ship-owners and those engaged in transportation 
upon the high seas, had suffered so far as related to property captured or 
destroyed. After all that was paid there was a balance of about ten millions 
left in the Treasury. It was claimed, and as I thought justly, by the people 
of the New England States and of the Middle States mostly, for they were 
generally the parties in interest — there may have been some exceptions — 
that they ought to have the balance of that amount on account of losses that 
they had sustained during the war, not by the actual seizures of their prop- 
erty by the Confederate cruisers upon the high seas, but that they had sus- 
tained heavy losses on account of marine insurance and war risks that they 
had to pay as merchants during the war. For instance, there were two 
merchants in New York trading abroad ; one put his goods under a foreign 
flag, brought them here on English bottoms, and he got a very low rate of 
insurance because there was no war risk. Another merchant next door 
shipped articles of like character from foreign ports to ports in the United 
States, and he chose to ship them on American bottoms. They were subject 
to capture by the Confederate cruisers, and he had to pay 3, 4, or 5 per cent, 
more insurance upon them. He claimed, and it seemed to me very justly, 
that he labored under very great disadvantage as compared with his neighbor 
because he cho=e to patronize American vessels and shipped by them, while 
his neighbor shipped upon foreign vessels. That class of citizens came and 
asked us — and there were other classes which I need not stop to mention — 
to pass an act of Congress for their relief, to distribute this balance of about 
$10,000,000 of the Geneva award that lay in the Treasury of the United 
States among the classes of claimants who were thus interested. 

There was at that time another fund of about $10,000,000 lying in the 
Treasury of the United States that the United States had as little or less 
claim to than it had to the balance of the Geneva award. That was a fund 
which arose from the sale of captured and abandoned property during the 
war and during the reconstruction period soon after the war. For months, 
and probably 1 might say a year or two, after the surrender of Lee's and 
Johnston's armies, the property of the Southern people had been seized by 
the agents of the Treasury Department, under the authority of the act of 
Congress known as the captured and abandoned property act, and it had 
been sold and the proceeds paid into the Treasury of the United States, and 
it lay there, not the property of the United States, because, as the Supreme 
Court of the United States has said, the United S'ates was trustee for the 
true owner of it. It was like the Geneva award fund, only I tliink with a 
stronger equity against the Government. It lay in the Treasury of the 



728 APPENDIX. 

United State?, and lies there still. Why did it lie there? Because there 
was a statute of limitations, of which I shall speak at a later period in my 
remarks, that bars the claimant and owners from goinp; into court to recover 
this money. So in the case of the Geneva award there was no law which 
authorized the claimant to draw it without an act of Congress. Therefore 
neither of these large funds in the Trensury, which did not belong to the 
United States Government, could be reached without legislation. 

When the bill was up to distribute the Geneva award fund I proposed to 
offer an amendment to it making provision also for the removal of the statute 
of limitations, so that this fund belonging to Southern citizens miglit be 
distributed, which lies now in the Treasury of the United States, and which 
is not claimed by the United States. 1 was asked by one or two senators on 
the other side not to do this. They said it would embarrass their case; that 
they had their measure then in a shape that it was likely to go through, and 
that we should consider this question on its merits and do justice at a sub- 
sequent period, I acquiesced in that view. As their measure had been 
matured and brought before Congress, and was in a shape that justice might 
be done, as I thought, I would not embarrass it by offering an amendment 
requiring the distribution at the same time of both these funds that lay in 
the Treasury that ought to be in the pockets of citizens of the United States. 
The result was that the act was passed for the distribution, under p?oper 
restrictions, of the Geneva award fund. Nothing has been done yet, how- 
ever, for the relief of citizens of the Southern section of the Union, who own 
this other large fund of about equal amount. The first, the Geneva award 
fund, went almost exclusively to citizens of what are known as the Northern 
States, or the Middle and New England States I might say. 

Mr. Hoar. Largely in California. 

Mr. Brown. The senator says some of it went to California; at any rate, 
all went to what were known during the war as the loyal States. I believe 
that is a safe statement. On the other hand, the fund of wiiich I am speak- 
ing would go almost exclusively to citizens of the Southern States. But the 
equities in each case, I think, are the same; in other words, as the Govern- 
ment did not own the fund, and did not claim to own it, and as citizens of 
the different sections did own it, tho-e of one section being owners in one 
fund, and of the other sections in the other fund, I can see no reason why 
there should be a discrimination against citizens of my section; why money 
belonging to them, honestly and legally and justly theirs, should lie in the 
Treasury undisturbed because it is necessary to have legislation to remove 
the bar of the statute, when in the other case we passed an act of legislation 
removing whatever obstacles there might be in the way of the distribution 
of the fund. It is admitted that neither could be distributed without 
legislation. 

Now I say to senators of what were formerly termed the loyal States, that 
we from the South interposed no difficulties in the way of your getting the 
Geneva-award fund; most of us voted for your bill, and it has been and is 
being distributed, I presume, and I think rightly so. Now we appeal to you 
to do us the justice to remove this bar of the statute, and let us come in and 
get the fund which honestly and fairly and justly belongs to our people, 
many of them widows and orphans. Remove the bar of the statute, and let 
us draw that fund, and let it go to those who are entitled to it. 

Mr, Hoar. How much is that fund? 

Mr. Brown. I do not know the exact sum; I understand it is about 
$10 000,000, nearly the satne amount that lay in the Treasury in case of the 
Geneva award undistributed. The two funds were practically of equal 
amount. 



APPENDIX. 729 

Tt has been said that this cannot be done because many of these claimants 
participated in the rebellion and forfeited their rights to sue in the courts, 
and that tliey cnnnot come now and claim the benefit of the fund on that 
account, even if tlie bar of the statute of limitations were removed. 

Now, a word as to the bar of the statute. In March, 1863, the Congress 
of the United States passed a law known as the cnptuied and ab.mdoned 
property act, which was peculiar in its provisions. It authorized the Secre- 
tary of tlie Treasury to send his agents into the insurrectionary States and 
seize the property of the citizens of those States which were then regarded 
as ill rebellion, and so declared by the authorities of the United States, with 
the exception of such property as munitions of war, vessels used for the pro- 
motion of the rebellion, and other property of that character, which Treasury 
agents had no right to seize, because such pi'operty if seized by the armies 
would become ipxo facio the property of the United States. 1 should say, 
however, that prior to the passage of that act there had been one or more 
acts of Congress passed declaring the property of those in rebellion subject 
to confiscation, and tribunals had been provided for carrying that law into 
execution and confiscating the property of rebels. 

But I ask senators to bear in mind that confiscation was not accomplished 
simply by act of Congress, nor could it be. It could only be done by trial 
and judgment in some court authorized by Congress to adjudicate the case. 
In other words, Congress had no right to declare any man a rebel and 
adjudge that he was guilty of treason without a trial in court, and Congress 
had no right to take the private property of any one in rebellion and forfeit 
it by act of Congress. It could only be done by a proper proceeding in the 
courts, unless it was such property as was used in carrying on military opera- 
tions. 

And I will here remark that the Government of the United States had 
adopted the modern law of nations on this question. They did not act on 
the practice that the private property of non-combatant enemies v/as liable 
to seizure as booty of war. Therefore they had no right, unless tiiey de- 
parted from that wise and humane and just rule now practiced by modern 
civilized nations, to seize and confiscate the property of non-combatant ene- 
mies as booty of war, but must if they seized it make just compensation 
for it. 

Chief Justice Chase, delivering the opinion of the court, said in the case 
of the United States rs. Klein, 13 Wallace, page 137 : 

" The Government recognized to the fullest extent the humane maxims of 
the modern law of nations, which exempt private property of non-combatant 
enemies from capture as booty of war." 

Then according to the opinion of the Supreme Court of tlie United States, 
as delivered hy a Republican chief justice, who was an able statesman and an 
enlightened jurist, the Government practiced upon the rule that the private 
property of non-combatant enemies was exempt from seizure as booty. If 
this was so, of course it followed that it could not be taken without com- 
pensation. 

That being the practice of the Government, it had no right to seize the 
property of non-combatants in the Southern States that were declared in 
rebellion and appropriate it to the uses of the Government of the United 
States without paying just compensation, as required by the Constitution. 
In other words, the Government was applying, and must apply if it complied 
with this modern rule of the law of nations, the same rule to the Southern 
rebel, as he was termed, who was engaged in war against the United States, 
that it would have applied to a subject of Great Britain or a citizen of 
Mexico if we had been at war with either of those powers. What would 



730 APPENDIX. 

have been the rule there? It would have been that the property of non-com- 
batants seized for the uses of the army, where it was not of the character of 
ordnance, military stores, or the lilie, must be paid for by the Government. 
This is a necessary conclusion from the doctrine laid down by the chief 
justice already quoted. 

But there were stronger reasons here why it should be so. No particular 
citizen of the South was known to the law to be in rebellion ; no one of them 
was a traitor until he was tried and a competent court pronounced him such 
by its judgment. Then he became legally a traitor, and then his property 
might be confiscated or taken by a proper proceeding in court under a judg- 
ment of the court, but this could not be done as long as he was a citizen of 
the United States not convicted of treason, and he was, according to the 
theory of the Government, notwithstanding we had seceded, still a citizen, 
but a citizen in rebellion. The Constitution fixes that point and I desire to 
read it; I read from the fifth article of the amendments : 

" No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous 
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases 
arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in 
time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same 
offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in 
any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of lile, 
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property 
be taken for public use, without just compensation." 

Therefore so long as he was a citizen the Government had no right to take 
his private property without paying him just compensation, unless he was 
convicted and deprived of his property by due process of law. 

That being the status then of our people at and near the termination of the 
war, the Government had the right to proceed against a citizen who had par- 
ticipated in the rebellion as a rebel, and it had a right to push the case to 
the extent of the forfeiture of his property if his guilt were legally established. 
The forfeiture would have been subject to the provision of the Constitution 
of the United States. It had the right to proceed against him as a rebel if 
it chose to do so. The Government did not choose to do this in all cases. 
Indeed there was legal condemnation of property in but few cases. 

What was the action of tlie Government? The executive of the United 
States, who had the pardoning power, interposed his pardon first to certain 
classes; or rather I might say that Mr. Lincoln's proclamation at first em- 
braced everybody in rebellion who came in and took an oath and complied 
with certain conditions. Then at the end of the war — by the end of the war 
now I mean the surrender of Lee and Johnston — President Johnson issued 
his proclamation of pardon embracing almost allcitizeos of the United States, 
except certain classes upon whom he imposed certain restrictions and terms 
before they could be pardoned. At a subsequent period he finally issued a 
proclamation extending pardun and amnesty to every person who had 
engaged in the rebellion with full and perfect restoration of all his civil 
rights and rights of property. When this was done by the President of the 
United States, we were all placed back again, so far as our rights in the 
courts and our rights of property and our rights as citizens were concerned, 
upon exactly the same basis as any citizen who had never engaged in 
rebellion. 

I want to refer to some authority on that point. I take the position that 
the pardon not only relieved the person pardoned, the person who had been 
in rebellion, fi-om punishment, but it i-elieved him of every disal>ility, and 
where it was a full pardon, and went to the extent of I'estoration of civil 
rights and rights of property, it placed him exactly in the same legal position 



APPENDIX. 731 

which he would have occupied if he had never committed the offence. I will 
read a little authority on that question, which is doubtless familiar to the 
senate, but it comes in the line of my argument, and I prefer to refer to it. 
The first is the case of ex parte Garland, 4 Wallace, page 380. The Supreme 
Court says : 

" The Constitution provides that the President * shall have power to grant 
reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases 
of impeachment.' The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the excep- 
tion stated. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exer- 
cised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are 
taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. This 
power of the President is not subject to legislative control. Congress can neither 
limit the effect of his pardon nor exclude from its exercise any class of 
offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be 
fettered by any legislative restrictions. 

"Such being the case, the inquiry arises as to the effect and operation of a 
pardon, and on this point all the authorities concur. A pardon reaches both 
the punishment pi-escribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender ; and 
when the pardon is full it releases the punishment and blots out of existence 
the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he 
had never committed the offence. If granted before conviction, it prevents 
any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attach- 
ing; if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities and 
restores him to all his civil rights ; it makes him, as it were, a new man and 
gives him a new credit and capacity. 

" There is only this limitation to its operation, it does not restore offices 
forfeited or property or interests vested in others in consequence of the con- 
viction and judgment. 

•' The pardon produced by the petitioner is a full pardon 'for all offences 
by him committed, arising from participation, direct or implied, in the rebel- 
lion,' and is subject to certain conditions, which have been complied with. 
The effect of this pardon is to relieve the petitioner from all penalties and 
disabilities attached to the offence of treason committed by his participation 
in the rebellion. So far as that offence is concerned, he is thus placed beyond 
the reach of punishment of any kind. But to exclude him by reason of that 
offence from continuing in the enjoyment of a previously acquired right is to 
enforce a punishment for that offence notwithstanding the pardon. If such 
exclusion can be effected by the exaction of an expurgatory oath covering 
the offence, the pardon may be avoided, and that accomplished indirectly 
which cannot be reached by direct legislation. It is not within the constitu- 
tional power of Congress thus to inflict punishment beyond the reach of exec- 
utive clemency. From the petitioner, therefore, the oath required by the 
act of January 24, 1865, could not be exacted, even if that act were not sub- 
ject to any other objection than the one thus stated." 

Mr. Morgan. I should like to ask the senator from Georgia if he holds 
that if the property of a man who was engaged in tlie rebellion has been con- 
fiscated by the judgment of a court and that person is subsequently pardoned, 
that pardon has such relation back as to restore him to his rights of prop- 
erty notwithstanding the judgment of that court? That is the question I 
desire to ask the senator. 

Mr. Brown. I will reply in the language of the Supreme Court just read : 

" There is only this limitation to its operation, it does not restore offices 
forfeited or property or interests vested in others in consequence of the 
conviction and judgment." 

There is no other exception ; offices forfeited are not restored by the par- 



732 APPENDIX. 

don, and so far as the rights of others are concerned — for instance, inform- 
ers — the pardon does not interfere with the rights of third persons ; but so 
far as property forfeited by the judgment of the courts is concerned, if the 
rights of third persons have not attached, the pardon, I hold, restores the 
property forfeited and restores the party to all the rights that he had as 
though he had never committed the offence. 

Mr. MorgRn. The senator holds then, that notwithstanding there is a valid 
judgment of confiscation which remains unexecuted because the property 
has not been sold, the pardon of the President reverses and annuls that 
judgment? 

Mr. Brown. I do ; just as it reverses the Judgment of conviction of 
treason. 

Mr. Morgan. I am sorry T cannot agree with the senator in that proposi- 
tion. By parity of reasoning also, why can he not hold that after property 
had been lawfully captured by an army in the field during the war, and had 
been consumed by that army after having been captured from an enemy, 
afterward the pardon of the Pi-esident of a man who was then engnged in 
rebellion would restore him or give him a right of action against the Govern- 
ment for the property thus destroyed? I do not believe that the pardoning 
power has that extent. 

Mr. Brown. I should prefer that the senator, as the senators on the other 
side have done, would make his interruptions as short as he can conveniently. 

Mr. Morgan. I beg pardon. 

Mr. Brown. I do not object to my attention being drawn to the point. I 
will state in reply to the senator, however, that it is not important to the 
objects of this discussion whether I be right or whether he be right on the 
point already mentioned, because the money T design to reach now for those 
who are entitled to it that arose from the sale of captured and abandoned 
property was not money forfeited by any judgment of any court of the United 
States. No, it has not been so forfeited. The Supreme Court has decided 
over and over again that it was not the intention of Congress to do that be- 
cause no provision was made for its confiscation by any court whatever. 
Then the point between us is not an important one so far as this question is 
concei'ned. 

Mr. Edmunds. Was it not forfeited as prize of war taken on land? 

Mr. Brown. I stated distinctly at the outset of my argument that anything 

like ordnance or boats or ships used for the purposes of war and small arms 

■ and accoutrements and everything of that kind became the property of the 

captor immediately on capture, and in case of vessels, on judgment in the 

proper prize court. 

Mr. Edmunds. Take the case of private property of enemies of the peo- 
ple which was turned into money and put into the Treasury and then came 
peace, what then ? 

Mr. Brown. 1 have just read, while the senator was absent, frotn the de- 
cision of Chief Justice Chase in the case of the United States i;*-. Klein what 
he has to say on that subject. 

Mr. Edmunds. The senator need not read it again. 

Mr. Brown. It relates to the very point to which the senator from Ver- 
mont calls my attention and is short, and I will read it for the benefit of the 
senator from Vermont. 

Chief Justice Chase says : 

" The Government recognized to the fullest extent the humane maxims of 
the modern law of nations, which exempt private property of non-combatant 
enemies from capture as booty of war." 

Was that true ? 



APPENDIX. 733 

Mr. Edmunds. But suppose there is a capture of booty of war, does it 
pertain to any Judiciiil tribunal to undertake to give it back? Suppose the 
sovereign war-making power does not choose to recognize this humanity, but 
is savage, what then ? 

Mr. Jirown. Then the party, if he be a citizen of the United States, as 
these former rebels were, and the rule was adopted as stated by the chief 
justice, may seek his rights in the courts or before the legislative department 
whenever he can establish that claim. The Constitution of the United States, 
which I read while the isenator was out, says distinctly that no citizen shall 
be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due proctss of law, and that 
private property .shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. 

Chief Justice Chase says that the Government adopted to the fullest extent 
the humane maxims of the modern law of nations, that the property of non- 
combatant enemies is not liable to capture as booty of war. Then if these 
non-combatant enemies were citizens of the United States, when we come 
down to the diy legal question they have rights. But that is not what 1 am 
trying to get at now ; I am trying to get money out of tlie Treastiry which no 
one claims that the Government owns; which the United States do not 
claim; which the Supreme Court says the Government holds as trustee for the 
owners. I am trying to reach that, and nothing more. And it seems to me 
that there is no question of the character raised by the senator in the way. 
Whatever might be the trouble about a suit brought by any one for property 
taken when he was in rebellion — and I do not care to discuss that now — I 
think these provisions of the Constitution of the United States and the opin- 
ion of Chief Justice Chase would go very far in that direction. But I am 
only seeking to open the Court of Claims to the owners o( the money now in 
the Treasury which the Government does not claim. But as 1 stated while 
the senator from Vermont was out of the Chamber, this captured and aban- 
doned property act was, as the court said, a peculiar one. 1 desire now to 
read a portion of what the court does say on that subject. 

1 read from 13 Wallace, page 136. The court says : 

" The answer to this question requires a consideiation of the rights of 
property, as affected by the late civil. war, in the hands of citizens engaged 
in hostilities against the United States. 

" Jt may be said, in general terms, that property in the insurgent States 
may be distributed into four classes. 

" First. That which belonged to the hostile organizations or was employed 
in actual hostihties on land. 

"Second. That wliich at sea became lawful subject of capture and prize. 

" Third. That which became the subject of conhscation. 

" Fourth. A peculiar description, known only in recent war, called cap- 
tured and abandoned property." 

Now, it is the latter class only that I am dealing with in the amendment 
which I have proposed, and therefore it is not very imjaortant to me so far 
as the present discussion is concerned how the other questions may be ruled 
or what may be the opinion' of the senate on them. But the court adds : 

"It is thus seen that except to property used in actual hostilities, as men- 
tioned in the hrst section of the act of March 12, 1863, no titles were divested 
in the insurgent States unless in pursuance of a judgment rendered after 
due legal proceedings." That idea is repeated in other portions of the 
opinion. "And it is reasonable to infer " — says the chief justice, on page 138 
— " that it was the purpose of Congress that the proceeds of the property for 
which the .special provision of the act was made should go into the Treasury 
without change of ownership. Certainly such was the intention in respect to 
the property of loyal men. That the same intention prevailed in re- 



734 APPENDIX. 

gard to the property of owners who, though then hostile, might subsequently 
become loyal, appears probable from the circumstance that no provision is 
anywhere made for confiscation of it, while there is no trace in the statute- 
book of intention to divest ownersiiip of private property not excepted from 
the effect of this act otherwise than by proceedings for confiscation." 

Again he says, on the same page : 

" In the case of Padelford we held that the right to the possession of private 
property was not changed until actual seizure by proper military authority, 
and that actual seizure by such authority did not dtvest the title under the pro- 
visions of the abandoned and captured property act. The reasons assigned 
seem fully to warrant the conclusion. The Government constituted itself 
the trustee for those who were by that act declared entitled to the proceeds of 
captured and abandoned property, and ior those whom it should thereafter 
recognize as entitled." 

I liave a use for that in the latter part of this argument. Tlie Government 
did recognize as entitled all who were pardoned without confiscation of prop- 
erty. 

Mr. Edmunds. That is, the court paid so, not Congress. 

Mr. Brown. The court is now speaking of what it understands Congress 
to have held; at least I am reading the decision of the court, the decision of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, and I suppose as it is the highest 
judicial tribunal we have to take its decisions without going further. Again, 
on page 139 the chief justice says : 

" The property of the original owner is in no case absolutely divested. 
There is, as we have already observed, no confiscation, but the proceeds of 
the property have passed into possession of the Government, and restora- 
tion of the property is pledged to none except to those who have continually 
adhered to the Government. Whether restoration will be made to others, 
or confiscation will be enforced, is left to be determined by considerations 
of public policy subsequently to be developed." 

In other words, as I understand the court, they mean that there was pro- 
vision m the captured and abandoned property act for a restoration of the 
property of all who did not aid or in any way participate in the rebellion. 
The property of the disloyal was not confiscated by this act, but its proceeds 
were put into the Treasury, the Government remaining, as the chief justice 
says, the trustee for the owner ; and the question was held open whether 
Congress would direct the courts to proceed and in a legal way confiscate 
the property, or whether a diiferent course should be taken as to the parties 
in rebellion who were entitled to the property and they restored to all their 
rights, civil and of every other character, with power to go into the courts 
and claim their property. 

In this connection I desire to state that during the war President Lincoln 
issued more than one proclamation tendering amnesty. He had the author- 
ity of an act of Congress for doing so ; but in a message to Congress he 
stated that that gave no additional force to it ; he claimed the absolute 
power himself, and that Congress had no control over the pardoning power, 
lie issued his proclamation declaring that all persons who would then hiy 
down their arms and return to their allegiance, who, of course, could not 
swear that they had never taken anypart against the Government, shoidd be 
pardoned and restored to all their civil rights and rights of property. Padel- 
ford was one of the persons who availed themselves of this amnesty, the case 
to which the chief justice refers Klein's case, from which I have just read in 
13 Wallace. 

Mr. Cameron, of Wisconsin. Padelford's property was taken after he 
had taken the oath of allesriance, not before. 



APPENDIX. 735 

Mr. Brown. So I am aware. 

Mr. Edmunds. That was the property of a loyal citizen. 

Mr. Brown. That is the very point. Padelford's property was taken 
after he had taken the oath of allegiance, and therefore it was as the sena- 
tor from Vermont says, the property of a loyal citizen, which I grant. Pad- 
elford had aided the rebellion and was pardoned. His property was the 
property of a loyal citizen only because he was pardoned. The property of 
every other Confederate who participated in the rebellion and who has been 
restored by the pardon of the President to all his riglits of property becomes the 
property of a loyal citizen in like manner and for the same reason, and therefore 
he has a right in each case to go into court and claim his property. Congress 
has no right to interfere with the effects of that pardon, to destroy its legal 
consequences, to limit, abridge, or in any way take from the person to whom 
it was extended the full extent of the force and the benefits of the pardon. 

That was attempted by the Drake amendment, as is well known to sena- 
tors, and was the very point in the case which I have been reading in 13 
Wallace. The Drake amendment proposed in substance 

Mr. Edmunds. That the Court of Claims should not have jurisdiction of 
certain class of claims. The Supreme Court said they should, although the 
act of Congress forbade it. 

Mr. Brown. I will take the language of the chief justice on that: 

"The substance of this enactment is that an acceptance of a pardon with- 
out disclaimer shall be conclusive evidence of the acts pardoned, but shall be 
null and void as evidence of the rights conferred by it, both in the Court of 
Claims and in this court on appeal." 

The Drake amendment, therefore, attempted to exclude the pardoned per- 
son from a portion of the benefits of his pardon by denying to him the right 
to plead his pardon or introduce his purdon as evidence in a case before the 
Court of Claims. The Drake amendment laid down the rule that the pardon 
was good as proof that the claimant had participated in the rebellion if he 
accepted it without any qualification or protestation, but that it should not 
be given in evidence in any case where he could use it for the protection of 
his rights in court. 

Mr. Hoar. May I ask the honorable senator a question? 

Mr. Brown. If it is a short one. 

Mr Hoar. It will be, perhaps, a short one. I was a member of the com- 
mittee that reported this bill. I should like to ask the honorable senator if he 
supposes it would be illegal for Congress to direct the attorney-general to ex- 
amine and report the facts on a certain class of claims against the Govern- 
ment except those which arose in the State of Mississippi, or except those 
where the persons making them had taken part in the rebellion? 

Mr. Edmunds. Or had red hair. 

Mr. Hoar. Before the senator answers the question I will make a state- 
ment. We do not understand — perhaps we are wrong — that in this bill we 
are giving jurisdiction to a court or that any citizen is coming before a court 
with a legal right. In the Drake amendment there was a judgment of the 
Supreme Court of the United States on appeal from the Court of Claims pro- 
vided for, and the Supreme Court, whether right or not, came to the conclu- 
sion that the senator has stated ; but this committee have framed this bill 
under the belief, whether they are right or wrong, that they were simply tak- 
ing a committee — they might just as well have taken a committee of the sen- 
. ate, or any other set of men, who should have the power to examine applica- 
tions and hear both sides and report the facts — that the jurisdiction of 
Congress is retained in Congress just as it was before. 

Every person who took part in the rebellion can come to Congress with 



736 APPENDIX. 

his petition for Congress to act upon just as before; but as tliere is not a 
man on either side of the Chamber who proposes to pay for this class of losses, 
and there cannot be found probably a prominent person in the country 
who so proposes, and as they amount to millions, we smiply say to the Court 
of Claims, "You need not trouble yourselves to investigate or report on this 
class of cases." Does the senator suppose that if you took that bill and struck 
outtlie words "court of claims" and put in " tlie attorney-general of the United 
States " or '* the chief clerk of the treasury department," it would be uncon- 
stitutional to let him make the report ? That is the question I desire to put. 

Mr. Brown. Oh, no; the senator knows very well that I do not hold it to 
be unconstitutional, and I was not saying it was, and my argument did not 
tend to any such conclusion. And I will remark that the senator does not 
state the Drake amendment correctly. 

Mr. Hoar. I thouglit the senator cited the decision of the court on the 
Drake amendment to show that this was a similar case, and that they held 
it to be unconstitutional. 

Mr. Brown. I referred to the case decided by Chief Justice Chase, and 
read from that. I have not denied the constitutionality of this reference to 
a court; but let me ask the senator now, suppose a bill of tliis character were 
to come up for action and we were to enact that all the States of the Union 
should have the benefit of it, except the New England States, because they 
got cross or disloyal during the war of 1812 and behaved badly and held the 
Hartford convention, and therefore that no disloyal New Engiander and no 
person descended from any New England State should have anything to do with 
the investigation or have any rights under it, would he vote for it ? If not, 
does he think a Southern senator should vote for this act, which makes this 
odious discrimination against the best class of the Southern people? 

Mr. Hoar. If the Congress of the United States had been in the habit for 
twenty or thirty years, when the anti-war Democrats were in power, of re- 
jecting various claims from New England on the ground that she behaved 
badly in the war of 1812, 1 have no doubt it would have been perfectly con- 
stitutional for the men who acted on that theory that those claims should not 
be paid, in providing a tribunal to investigate claims to say that that class 
of claims the tribunal need not trouble itself with, need not investigate, and 
anybody who thought they ought not to have been paid, would have been 
justified in putting that into the bill. Now we think, the senator and I both 
think, this class of Southern claims ought not to be paid. Therefore we say 
that the court need not trouble itself with them. 

Mr. Brown. The New England States have never been backward, never 
tardy, in presenting their claims. And they have received a large and liberal 
share. They shared largely in the Geneva fund under act of last session. 
They have always got the full measure of their rights. They would be ex- 
ceedingly restless and resentful of a proposition to exclude them from equal 
rights and equal privileges in any investigation of legal claims. As to the 
class of claims embraced in my amendment, I do not agree with the senatoi", 
and I do not believe he agrees with himself. 

I am referring simply to the $10,000,000 in the Treasury that Chief Justice 
Chase, in the opmion I have just read, said the Government holds as a trus- 
tee for the owners. I am referring to that class alone, no other claim or 
class of claims. 1 do not believe the senator from Massachusetts will say 
that ought not to be paid. Indeed, I believe he will, as an American senator, 
feel it his imperative duty to vote for my amendment. He knows it is just. 
He knows the money is in the Treasury, that the Government is trustee for 
the true owners, and that they are entitled to it on every principle of equity 
and good conscience. 



APPENDIX. 737 

]\rr. Hoar. Admitting that to be so, does not the honorable senator agree 
with ine that there is no occasion to refer the cotton claims to the Court of 
Claims? We know all about the facts. That is a question that Congress 
can settle as well as anybody else. Then why should they be put into the 
bill? 

Mr. Brown. It is not a qnestion that Congress alone can settle. Two 
things should be done. One is the removal by Congress of the bar of the 
statute of limitations that prevents the owners of this fund from suing for it 
in the Court of Claims, and the other is a provi^ion to try each case and see 
who is entitled to the property ; this must be done in court. I do not be- 
lieve the senator from Massuchusetts can, and I doubt whether there is any 
senator here who can afford to vote against a measure tiiat is so obviously 
just. Certainly no senator can whose constituents have the benefit of the 
distribution of the Geneva award voted them in large degree by Southern 
senators. I do not believe any one of them can afford to vote that the true 
.owners of this fund, many of them -widows and orphans, shall not be per- 
mitted to pursue their rights in the Court of Claims and have them adjudi- 
cated there. I do not believe there is that much prejudice now existing. 
Hostilities ceased some eighteen years ago, and almost a generation has 
passed since that time ; and the people, whatever politicians may think 
abont it, have become tired of the distinctions of loyalty and disloyalty. We 
are now all trying to be loyal. In each section we are vieing with each other 
who can do most in loyalty for the general good of the whole people of the 
United States. Why retain these distinctions or discriminations? Would the 
senator from Massachusetts, if the case were reversed, vote for a bill which 
made any such provision or discrimination against New England? Clearly 
not. Not a New England senator here would vote for it. If the discrimina- 
tion were made agaiust the people of any other section, the Western or Mid- 
dle States, they would spurn the idea and would resist it to the last moment. 
Why then should they ask us of the South, eighteen years after the war has 
closed, to sit by and quietly vote for a provision, that even in an investiga- 
tion of this character in the Court of Claims where the facts are to be brought 
before Congress, the rights of the Confederate shall not be considered, and 
no evidence shall be received in his behalf to sustain his rights, until he first 
swears and proves that he was always loyal to the Government during the 
war? We have passed that day. The Supreme Court has passed it over and 
over again. 

A word as to that statute of limitations. How happened it that these 
suits were not brought within the time allowed? The act was passed in 
ItiGS, when the war was raging in its deadliest fury. Provision was made 
for the seizure of this property, provision was made for the sale of it, and 
the payment of the proceeds into the Treasury of the United States, and that 
the money lie there until the true owners could produce proof of their owner- 
ship. If they were loyal it was provided they might have time to do so ; if 
they were disloyal there was no provision made for confiscation, but the 
money lay there subject to the future disposition of the Government. At a 
subsequent period the Government proclaimed, through its proper depart- 
ment, amnesty and pardon to everybody, and opened the doors of the courts 
and of the Court of Claims again to those who were the claimants and owners 
of this fund. 

You may ask why did not everybody avail himself of the benefit ? For 
this reason: Nobody knew, not even the Supreme Court of the United States 
at the time, when the statute of limitations commenced to run, or when the 
right of action was barred. 

It was provided in the captured and abandoned property act, that it should 
47 



738 ' APPENDIX. 

commence to run at the time of the suppression of the rebellion, and it should 
run two years from that time. When was the rebellion suppressed? That 
was a question which perplexed the heads of the wisest men of this country 
for a long while. Was it suppressed when Lee and Johnston and Kirby 
Smith and every Confederate commander laid down his arms, and all the 
people of the Southern States returned to their allegiance and submitted to 
the laws of the United States ? Was it suppressed when the post offices 
were all opened, post-routes established, postmasters appointed? Was it 
suppressed when the courts were opened and when everybody's rights could 
be adjudicated in court, when everything was going on orderly and peace- 
fully ? Was it then suppressed, or when was it suppressed ? That ques- 
tion was never decided until about one year and a half after the time that 
the statute of limitations is now held to have run and to have become a com- 
plete bar. 

At the fall term? in 1869 the Supreme Court of the United States, the pres- 
ent honored President of the senate, I believe, delivering the opinion, held 
that the rebellion was finally suppressed when President Johnson on the 
20th of August, 1866, issued his proclamation declaring its suppression. 
Then it had two years to run from that time, and on the 20th of August, 
1868, the bar of the statute was complete. Who knew that fact ? It was 
not known to any of the departments of the Government of the United 
States ; it was not known to the Supreme Court of the United States until 
the year following the time when the decision was made to which I 
have just referred. I allude to the case of The United States vs. Anderson, 
9 Wallace, which was adjudicated at the December term, 1869, a year and 
some months after the bar of the statute had completely attached, when the 
Supreme Court of the United States ruled fixing the time when the rebellion 
was suppressed. 

Why did not these claimants within the two years commence proceedings 
in the courts to recover the money which was due them in the Treasury for 
their cotton and other property sold? They did not do it because they knew 
nothing of the time when the statute commenced to run or when the bar at- 
tached. Not only that, we were then in the throes of reconstruction, we 
were then almost in a condition of anarchy and great confusion ; we were a 
portion of the time under military dictators, and we did not know one day 
what our fate was to be the next. 

Take my own State for instance. Up to the very time or even after the 
time that the bar of the statute had completely run, a military dictator sat 
in Atlanta and removed the governor of the State from his office and ap- 
pointed a military man in his place. He also removed the treasurer of the 
State from office and he appointed another in his place. He removed judges 
and appointed others in their places. This was done even after the period 
when according to the ruling of the Supreme Court the time within which 
suit could be brought had absolutely expired. Not only that, but subse- 
quent to that period of time a military dictator sat in his seat at Atlanta and 
ordered, like Cromwell of England, the Legislature of Georgia to disperse, 
and sent an outsider not a member to take the chair and reorganize the Leg- 
islature. That was the state of things in the South at the time this bar of 
the statute of limitations attached against these Southern claims. 

Another thing should be remembered. There had been great confusion, 
great trouble, destruction of property, destruction of railroads, and the means 
of communication were nothing like what they now are. Large numbers of 
persons who were interested in this property had been killed in battle or 
died in service; their widows and orphans knew nothing about this statute. 
They knew not that there was any probability that they would ever get any 



APPENDIX. 739 

compengation. They did not know that there was provision tnade for the 
commencement of suits in the Court of Claims until long after the time had 
expired. Their cotton and other property were taken from them by the 
military after the surrender of Lee and Johnston, sent to New York, and 
sold, and the money pnt into the Treasury of the United States. The chief 
justice of the United States says the United States Treasury had no right 
to it 5 that the United States is a trustee for the owners. And yet in the 
face of all these facts shall it be said that the Congress of the United States 
denies to these claimants the right to come into the courts and litigate their 
rights and establish them by the Judgment ot the courts of the Union? 
Surely this is not the feeling of honorable senators or of honest men in or 
out of this Chamber. 

I see no room for any politics in this question. It is a simple question of 
sheer justice. Will you permit these parties, widows and orphans — a large 
portion of them— iis I have said, to whom this property 'belongs, which was 
seized and taken from them and the proceeds paid into your Treasury, to 
come and establish that fact in your courts and di-aw their proportion, or 
will the Government of the United States deny that right to her citizens who 
are now, and in contemplation of law have always been, loyal? This is all 
I am asking for. 1 am not asking you to extend the law a particle further, 
to embrace any other claim of any character, only the simple claims of those 
whose property was seized and sold, and who can establish the fact that the 
money now in the Treasury belongs to them under the rulings of the Su- 
preme Court, because it arose from the sale of their property. I simply ask 
the senate to remove the bar of the statute, and let them be heard. 

Is it unreasonable ? Will you deny to a large and needy class of your cit- 
izens this simple measure of justice ? But I may be met here by the objection, 
and I was on that part of the argument when I was drawn off by the long 
question of the senator from Massachusetts, that the owners of this cotton 
and other property, or many of them, were disloyal to the Government, and 
that they cannot now come into the Court of Claims and establish their right 
unless they can show that they were always loyal. I say the Supreme Court 
of the United States has ruled the exact revei'se of that. It has held that a 
party after he has been pardoned is placed exactly where he would have 
stood if he had never been disloyal, and has a right, having been pardoned, 
to come into court and litigate his rights just as though he had never 
engaged in the rebellion. The Padelford case I have already referred to. 
There Mr. Padelford availed himself of President Lincoln's proclamation, 
and after he had taken the oath, complying with the terms and condition^ of 
the proclamation, his property was seized. What says the Supreme Court on 
tiiis subject? I read from 9 Wallace, page 543: 

" But it has l»een suggested that the property was captured in fact, if not 
lawfully, and that the proceeds having been paid into the Treasnry of the 
United States, the petitioner is without remedy in the Court of Claims un- 
less proof is made that he gave no aid or comfort to the rebellion. The sug- 
gestion is ingenious, but we do not think it sound. The sufficient answer to 
it is that after the pardon no offence connected with the rebellion can be im- 
puted to him. If in other respects the petitioner made the proof which 
under the act entitled him to a decree for the proceeds of his property, the 
law makes the proof of pardon a complete substitute for the proof that he 
gave no aid or comfort to the rebellion. A different construction would, as 
it seems to us, defeat the manifest intent of the proclamation and of the act 
of Congress which authorized it. Under the proclamation and the act, the 
Government is a trustee, holding the proceeds of the petitioner's property for 
his benefit; and having been fully reimbursed for all expenses incurred. in 



740 APPENDIX. 

that character, loses nothing by the judgment, which simply awards to the 
petitioner what is his own." 

That is Padelford's case, and it comes exactly to the point that the pardon 
when established stands in lieu of the proof that the claimant was loyal dur- 
ing the war. 

I desire on that same point also to refer to the case of Armstrong vs. The 
United States, 13 Wf;llace, 154. The syllabus is : 

"1. The President's proclamation of the 25th of December, 1868, grant- 
ing 'unconditionally and without reservation to all and every person who 
directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection or rebellion, a full 
pardon and amnesty for the oifenceof treason against the United States, etc., 
with restoration of all rights, privileges and immunities under the Constitu- 
tion and the laws which have been made in pursuance thereof,' granted 
pardon unconditionally and without reserve; and enables persons otherwise 
entitled to recover from the United States the proceeds of captured and 
abandoned property, under the abandoned and captured property act, to re- 
cover it though no proof be made, as was required by that act, that the claim- 
ant never gave any aid or comfort to the rebellion. 

" 2. The proclamation referred to is a public act, of which all courts of 
the United States are bound to take notice, and to which all courts are 
bound to give effect." 

The case of Pargoud vs. United States, 13 Wallace, page 156, is to the 
same point : 

"Appeal from the Court of Claims. 

" Pargoud filed a claim in the court below to recover under the abandoned 
and captured property act the proceeds of certain cotton. This act, as by 
reference to its provisions on page 151, supra, will be seen, makes ' proof 
that the claimant had never given aid or comfort to the late rebellion ' a pre- 
requisite to recovery. Pargoud's petition, however, averred no loyalty at all. 
On the contrary, it set forth in the first sentence of it 'that he was guilty of 
participating in the rebellion against the United States,' adding, however, 
' that he had been duly and legally pardoned for such participation by the 
President of the United States: and that he had received a pardon under 
the great seal, dated on the 11th day of Januarj', 1866, which had been duly 
accepted by him, and that his acceptance, duly notified to the Secretary of 
State, was now on file in the office of that Department ; and that he had 
complied with all the legal formalities in such case made and provided, and 
under the proclamations of amnesty and pardon issued by the President of 
the United States, now stands and is entitled to be considered in law as if 
he never had, in point of fact, participated in the late rebellion against the 
United States, and consequently he now avers that in legal intendment 
and under the allegations already made he has at all times borne true allegi- 
ance to the Government of the United States ; and that he has not in any 
way aided, abetted, or given encouragement to the rebellion against the 
United States.' " 

The Chief Justice says : 

" We have recently decided, in the case of Armstrong vs. United States, 
that the President's proclamation of December 25, 1868, granting pardon 
and amnesty unconditionally and without reservation to all who participated 
directly or indirectly in ihe late rebellion, relieves claimants of captured 
and abandoned property from proof of adhesion to the United States dur- 
ing the late civil war. It was unnecessary, therefore, to prove such adhe- 
sion or personal pardon for taking part in the rebellion against the United 
Slates." 



APPENDIX. 741 

And they reversed the judgment of the Court of Claims, which had required 
proof of loyalty after pardon. 

The case of Armstrong's Foundry, decided in 6 Wallace, 766, is to the 
same purport, so far as the effect of the pardon is concerned. That case 
arose under the confiscation act of 6th August, 1861. That act makes prop- 
erty usfd in aid of rebellion with the consent of tlie owner, subject to seizure, 
confiscation and condemnation. The property was seized under this act, and 
the Supreme Court held that the Piesident's pardon relieves such owner 
from the forfeiture of the property seized, so far as the right accrues to the 
United States. 

Let me recapitulate some of the points involved. 

There are about f 10,000,000 in the Treasury of the United States which 
arose out of the sale of captured and abandoneci property, as it was called, 
of Confederates who are now citizens of the Southern States. Part of it 
belonged originally to loyal citizens of the Soutii during the war. These 
citizens were permitted by the act of March, 1863, to file their claims at any 
time within two years after the suppression of the rebellion, and, on proof 
of loyalty and of ownership, to recover the proceeds of the sale of the prop- 
erty. 

In December, 1868, the President of the United States proclaimed univer- 
sal pardon and amnesty to all persons engaged in the rebellion. This re- 
lieved such owners of this fund as had participated iu the rebellion from all 
legal guilt and placed them on precisely the same legal footing as those who 
had not participated in the rebellion ; but the pei'iod of the statute of limita- 
tions, as I have already shown, was two years from 20th August, 1866, to 
20th August, 1868, so that the bar of the statute had completely attached 
before the President's pardon restoring those who participated in the 
rebellion to all their legal rights. They therefore never had an opportunity 
to file their claims in the Court of Claims to the part of the fund belonging 
to them. Many of those who were loyal knew nothing of their legal rights 
or of the terms of the act of 1863, passed during the war, for the reasons I 
have already given, until after the bar of the statute had completely at- 
tached. The authorities, including the Supreme Court of the United States, 
did not know when the statute commenced to run or when the bar of the 
statute became complete until many months after all right of action was 
barred by the statute. 

The Supreme Court have held repeatedly that the Government does not 
own this fund, but holds it as a trustee for the true owners. They have also 
held that the pardon of the claimant who participated in the rebellion placed 
him on the same legal footing of loyalty a? the man who did not pai ticipate 
in the rebellion, and gives him the same right to recover. Instead of prov- 
ing his loyalty, he proves his pardon, and th:it the Supreme Court says shall 
be received in place of the proof of his loyalty. 

There can be no possible dispute about the facts. The fund is in the 
Treasury. It is not pretended that it belongs to the Government of the 
United States. It is admitted that the Government holds it as trustee for 
the owners, and it is admitted that the owners, whether they participated in 
the rebellion or not, would, under the decisions of the Supreme Court, be en- 
titled to recover the fund, if the bar of the statute of limitations were 
removed. That bar attached, under the peculiar circumstances above men- 
tioned, during a period closely verging on anarchy in the Southern States, 
when there was great uncertainty and confusion among our people. In a 
word, it was in the stormier periods of reconstruction. Under this state of 
the case the owners of this fund knock at the door of Congress, and ask that 
the bar of the statute be removed, and that they be permitted to commence 



742 APPENDIX. 

proceedings in one of the courts of the Union for the recovery of money ad- 
mitted to be justly and legally their due. 

Can Northern senators afford to vote against a bill that does this simple 
act of justice to a large class of worthy, honest, and conscientious citizens of 
part of the States of this Union? It seems to me it is impossible. 

Now one word more on this point. I will neither be misunderstood nor 
misrepresented on this question. My amendment asks for no reopening of 
the issues of the war. It does not ask for any enactment that would make 
the Government liable to Southern war claims, or that would make it neces- 
sary to appropriate one dollar out of the public Treasury to meet any claim 
of that character. "Whatever may be the effect of the Constitution, the 
statutes, the proclamations of the President, and the rulings of the Supreme 
Court upon the legal status of such claims, I do not ask to disturb in the 
least particular their present status. I ask for nothing but the passage of an 
act that secures to the legal owners of the fund, now in the Treasury, not 
claimed by the Governmeut, which arose out of the sale of the property be- 
longing to those legal owners, the right to establish their claims in court, and 
to be treated as other American citizens are treated when they have estab- 
lished them by proof that cannot be controverted. By the fifth section of the 
act of May 18, 1872, all cotton seized after the 30th June, 1865, by agents of 
the Government, unlawfully, and in violation of their instructions, of which 
the proceeds were paid into the Treasury was to be paid for by the Govern- 
ment without regard to the loyalty of the owner. But the claim must be 
filed in the Treasury within six months after the passage of the act. And 
the act does not apply to any claim then pending in the Court of Claims. 
But this act only applies when the agent of the Government acted illegally, 
and in violation of instructions. 

The President pro tempore. The hour of 2 o'clock has arrived. 

Mr. Brown. I have said substantially what I desii-e to say. There is a 
brief in connection with the subject, prepared with some care, which, if there 
is no objection, I will put in the Record in connection with my remarks, aud 
as the hour of 2 has arrived I yield the floor to the regular order. 



Speech of Honorable Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, in the Senate 
OF THE United States, Tuesday, January 23, 18a3. Hk gives his 

VIEWS ON THE TaKIFF AND THE InTERNAL-Rk VENUE SYSTEM ; ON BES- 
SEMER Steel, Rice, &c. 

The bill (H. R. 5538) to reduce internal revenue being under consideration, and the 
pending question being on the amendment of Mr. Miller of New York, to increase from 
BO cents to $1 per ton the duty on iron ore — 

Mr. Brown said: 

Mr. President : I have said nothing on this very important question, and 
I do not know that I should utter a word now were it not that when I 
asked a question this morning when the senator from Texas [Mr. Maxey] 
was making some remarks in reference to the importation of steel rails the 
senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] thought proper, in a manner a little ex- 
cited, to assign me a position on this question that I do not occupy. I do 
not believe my friend intended to do injustice. I have usually found him, 
in fact, I may say I have always found him fair, just, and reasonable. He 
made the statement that I would vote for 100 or 150 per cent, and for pro- 
tection for protection's sake. Now, I say most distinctly that 1 occupy no 
§uch position. 



APPENDIX. 743 

Mr. Beck. The senator will allow me. I think he will not find when the 
reporter makes out the Record that I made such an assertion. 

Mr. Brown. I so understood it. I do not know how it may appear in the 
Record. 

Mr. Beck. I never intended to make such an assertion, if I did. 

Mr. Brown. I did not ^hink the senator did, but I so understood him, 
and I think that was the language or very nearly the exact language he used. 
And I wish now to say with erapliasis that I occupy no such position on this 
question. On a former occasion, at the last session of Congress, when I ad- 
dressed the Senate on this question, my honorable friend from Kentucky did 
me the honor to hear me most of the time. In those remarks I was very 
careful to negative any such idea. 

I am utterly opposed to levying one dollar of tax on the people of the 
United States for protection alone. I am in favor as soon as it can possibly 
be done of raising all the tax necessary to support the Federal Government 
upon imported articles, as I have avowed again and again upon this floor. I 
am utterly opposed to the present internal-revenue system. It was a war 
measure, adopted as such, never intended at the time to be fastened perma- 
nently on the people of this country, and it never ought to be. That system 
entails upon us, in addition to the expense we heretofore had to bear of col- 
lecting the revenues, the cost of another army of collectors — inland collectors 
— who are increased by a process of indefinite expansion when a political 
campaign comes on ; and many of them are used as very efficient political 
agents to advance the interests of the party in power. That is not all. 
Kothing has done so much to annoy the citizens of this country, to vex and 
harass them — I mean nothing in the shape of legislation for the collection of 
revenue — as has the working of this internal-revenue system. 

Under the law governing the system, or at least under the practice, and 
they claim that it is justiiied by law, and I believe it is, by what purports to 
be law on the statute-book, the collector of internal revenue sends his deputy 
out upon a raid whenever he thinks proper to do so. He issues his summons 
to his henchmen, and gathers around him whatever force he desires. He 
goes into the country in search of illicit stills, as the excuse is. What power 
does he go armed with ? If he finds a still running where there is not a li- 
cense, he resorts to no judicial proceeding; he seizes it, destroys the still or 
takes it from its place and carries it away, destroys the beer or any other ar- 
ticles that he may find in the distillery that he thinks proper to destroy, and 
seizes the property of the distiller and carries it off, and many times he takes 
property in no way connected with the running of the distillery. This is 
done by an agent of the Government of the United States, which Government 
has in its Constitution the distinct provision that private property shall not 
be taken for public use without just compensation; and provides distinctly 
that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process 
of law. 

This system is even carried so far that if in these raids the revenue col- 
lectors find a man at a distillery, though he had nothing to do with distilling, 
if he becomes alarmed and runs at their approach, yet if they raise their fire- 
arms and shoot him down, the courts of the State are not permitted to try 
his murderers as criminals. In such case the demand comes for a transfer 
of the case to the Federal courts, and it is so ordered, because this raider, 
with his posse, who goes around through the mountains or the valleys hunt- 
ing stills, is claimed to have been an agent of the Government, and acting 
under its authority while he was out destroying the property of the citizen 
without warrant or authority or the judgment of any court for doing so, and 
if any one olfers resistance, nay more, if anyone flees even and does not stop 



744 APPENDIX. 

wlien commanded and is shot down, the State courts are held to have no ju- 
risdiction, and this agent ol:' the Government is put on trial in the United 
.States court and the Uuited States district attorney is ordered to defend him. 
A mockery of justice ! 

Tlius the Constitution and laws of this country, I mean the Constitution 
and all laws passed in conformity to it, are trampled under foot recklfssly 
and tyrannically in the execution of tliis system. And yet some of the sena- 
tors in this Chamber, who are very denunciatory of almost any kind of tariif, 
are sticklers for tlie continuance of the internal-revenue system. I would 
abolish it absolutely. I would do away with this army of oollectors and 
these illegal raiders. I would destroy the power and monopoly of the great 
whiskey ring, and I would collect tiie revenue at the ports of this country, as 
our fathers collected it, and as it was always done except when the exigencies 
of war required extreme measures. 

On what principle should we collect it? Which is better, the tariff system 
always practiced as most satisfactory to the people, or the iuternal-revenue 
or direct-tax system ? It mu-t be done by one system or the other. We 
must have money to support the Government. 

It IS very easy to appeal to the prejudices of the populace on this ques- 
tion. No matter what sort of tar.ff is proposed, what tlie per cent, is npon 
any article; no matter what the duty is ou clothing or food or trace-chains 
or looking-glasses or anything else that has been mentioned and discus.-ed 
here, how easy it is to say were it not for the tariff our people would buy it 
for 20 per cent., 30 per cent., 40 per cent., or 50 per cent, less than tliey now 
pay. That is true, and it applies to every article that is protected 
by a tariff; and every article produced by us upon which a tariff 
is liiid is protected to that extent. But how are you going to 
get rid of it? What is your remedy for the protection of the peojile in 
th^it case V They can be protected against all these exactions of tariff and all 
tariff protection in one way, and that is to collect all the revenue this Gov- 
ernment needs by internal taxation and collect ncnie of it at the ports. 
Then we s-hould have the pure, genuine, unadulterated free-trade principle 
carried out. Are s-enators I'eady to adopt that plan of collecting the reve- 
nue? If they are, those who take that position draw the line sharply and 
distinctly between them and other senators who believe that the revenue 
should be collected by a tariff. We must have a certain amount of revenue 
each year to support this Government; how much I do not know. Our last 
appropriation bills, with all the other demands of the Treasury. I believe 
were stated ou the last night of the last session to amount to about 
$100,000,000. 

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia. Four hundred and three million dollars. 

Mr. Brown. The honorable senator from West Virginia says $403,000,000 
last year. 1 thank him. How much less is it to be this year? The senator 
from Kentucky [Mr. Beck] is on the committee on appropriations. 

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia. I will say to my friend from Georgia that 
the secretary of the treasury estimates $415,000,000 for the next year. 

Mr. Brown. The senator from West Virginia, a member of the committee 
on appropriations, now says that the secretary of the treasury estimates 
$415,000,000 for this year, and f3K>,OoO,000 of that I understand is for neces- 
sary expenses. It may be that the senator from Kentucky and his colleague 
upon the committee on appropriations will find some way of cutting down 
the appropriations immensely. If they do so, and it is practicable and just, 
I will vote with them most cordially, for I desire to say here that the affairs 
of tills Government should be administered economically. All extravagance 
should be cut off and not a dollar should be raised that is not necessary for 



APPENDIX. 745 

the economical administration of the Government. If, however, it takes 
$415,000,000 a year to run it, or suppose we drop the $15,000,000 on account 
of the economy that the committee on appropriations is going to exercise in 
recommending appropriations, then it is $100,000,000 a year tiiat we ha\e 
to raise. 

How is it proposed to do it? We must meet the question like sensible 
men and like statesmen. We must support this Government, and we must 
raise all the funds absolutely necessary for that purpose. Assuming that it will 
be not less than $400,000,000 next year, how do you propose to raise it ? By a 
tax on customs, that is upon imported goods, or by an internal tax upon the 
people of. this country levied directly? How is it to be raised? 1 repeat. 
If by tariff, we need not be so very exact about just how much we put on each 
article. We shall get some too high and some too low, perhaps, for it is very 
hard to adjust it right, but we need not stickle about small per cents, in it, 
because it will take a large tariff to raise that amount. Even with your 
internal-revenue system, which is clung to with so much tenacity by some 
senators, you will be obliged to raise about $250,000,000 by tariff taxation, 
if I may use that expression. 

Mr. Beck. Before the senator proceeds further, \?ill he allow me to sug- 
gest one thing that has occurred to me several times? 

Mr. BroW'U. I do not wish to give way for a speech. 

Mr. Beck. I do not wish to make a speech ; I desire only to suggest to 
the senator from Georgia that all the revenue raised from whiskey and 
tobacco goes into the Treasury of the United States, and therefore prevents 
the necessity of raising anything more than the revenue actually paid, w here- 
as Mr. Oliver says $28 a ton on Bessemer steel, out of which millions have 
heretofore been raised, is now prohibitory, and that tax so kept up will make 
the people of the country pay $28 a ton more than the steel rail is woith, and 
yet not pay a dollar into the Treasury and not enable us to decrease taxation 
anywhere else. 

Mr. Brown. At a Mer period in my speech I will come to that Besserfter- 
. steel question. I have heard my friend from Kentucky, I think, something 
less than three hundred times on that question in the senate. 

Mr. Beck. And you have been greatly annoyed, no doubt, every time. 

Mr. Brown. I have always been ready to vote for a reduction of the tar- 
iff on steel rail. There is another side to that picture. It is true the diffi- 
culty the senator mentions has been one in the way, but I even prefer 
that to the system which he advocates, the practical working of which is for 
a raiding band of its agents to go out and shoot down citizens with impunity. 

Mr. Beck. One word more, and T will not trouble the senator again. He 
even prefers that Bessemer steel shall be taxed $28 a ton, absolutely prohibit- 
ory and yielding no revenue, rather than to have a revenue raised by 
means whereby all that is paid goes into the Treasury. 

Mr. Brown. No, that is not what I said. The senator shall not misrep- 
resent me in that way. 1 mean now, as between the two systems, that I 
prefer the tariff system even with some evils connected with it, rather than 
his system, or the one he advocates, under the practical workings of which the 
property of the citizen is destroyed without warrant or authority, and the 
citizen is shot down with impunity. 

Mr. Beck. That same thing is done under the customs laws quite as bad. 

Mr. Brown. I have not known instances of it. I do not think the sena- 
tor can point to them. If he will go to the mountains of North Carolina, 
Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee he can find plenty of instances such as I 
have mentioned under the internal-revenue system. I have not heard of 
them under the customs laws, and I do not believe they exist there. I have 



746 APPENDIX. 

heard of no case where a citizen was shot down there for running when he 
was told to stand by an agent of the United States and then the criminal 
carried into a United States court for a mock trial and there acquitted, the 
United States district attorney defending him. I know no such case. I ven- 
ture to say the senator from Kentucky cannot furnish the instance. Will he 
name the case? It does not exist. 

But now a word — 

Mr. Harris. The senator fiom Georgia certainly does not mean — 

Mr. Brown. I cannot be interrupted by all the senators, because I want 
to go on and make my argument. They will have ample time to reply to 
me after I have done. I certainly do not intend to be discourteous to any 
senator. 

Mr. Harris. T simply desired to inquire of the senator if he meant to say 
that there was anything in the internal-revenue law authorizing the acts to 
which he refers ; if he does not refer to acts of crime in violation of that and 
all other laws ? 

Mr. Brown. I meant to say that under the law and practice of that sys- 
tem men are shot down under the circumstances I have mentioned and the 
murdei'ers tried under the circumstances mentioned, and acquitted. Not 
long since there was an instance in the State represented by the senator from 
Tennessee of that very character. Davis, T believe, was the man who did 
the shooting. He was a rather noted revenue agent. That is the practice 
under that system. It occurred in Tennessee, it occurred in Georgia, it oc- 
curred in Alabama, it occurred in North Carolina and South Carolina, and I 
do not know but also in Kentucky. I do not know whether citizens have 
been shot down by the revenue officers there or not. 

But a word more in reference to the Tennessee case. Davis, the revenue 
collector, was a favorite with the authorities and a noted raider upon the 
people. And I here make a short extract from the very able speech of Colo- 
nel A. S. Colyar, who was counsel for the State in the prosecution of Davis 
for killing Haynes. Davis was on a raid in Grundy county. He approached 
a distillery and Haynes was at the distillery, but in no way connected with 
the business of distilling. Seeing the revenue officers and not knowing but 
he might be arrested, he started to run. They hailed him, but he did not 
stop and Davis shot him down. Davis was indicted in Grundy county for 
murder, and the case took the usual course. An order was sent down from 
the United States court to the State court to transfer the case to the former 
court. The transfer was made and the usual result, I believe, followed. Davis 
was not punished. But to the extract. Colonel Colyar says : 

" Here is an extract from a report made of the result of one raid in which 
the defendant took part, as follows : 

"' They seized sixteen distilleries, five of which were in Tennessee, nine in 
Kentucky, and two in Virginia. They also captured 15,200 gallons of mash 
and beer, 165^ gallons of singlings, 87 of whiskey, 45 bushels of meal, 16 
bushels of malt, 10 copper stills and caps, 11 worms, and 261 mash-tubs. 
Value of property destroyed, $3,300.' 

" A few days before the above was published, the same paper had i-eported 
the horses, cattle, and hogs brought into the city on a steamboat as the result 
of a single raid by Davis and his squad, this property being seized as property 
belonging to illicit distillers." 

This, then, is the manner in which the business of collecting internal reve- 
nue is carried on in the State of Tennessee. And it is carried on in like man- 
ner, as already stated, in a number of other States. The property of the citi- 
zen is seized or destroyed at the caprice of the Government agent. He sits 
in the case as judge, jury, and executioner. He determines whether the 



APPENDIX. 747 

party is guilty of illegal distillation. He destroys the still and seizes the 
property of the party; and if the disliller or any one present attempts to 
get away he shoots him down ; and when indicted in the State court he claims 
a transfer to the United States court, where he goes through the form of a 
mock trial, defended by the United States district attorney, and is acquitted. 
And this is the system that is to be settled upon us and under which our 
people are to suffer oppression until they have arisen in their might and 
required of their representatives its unconditional abrogation. 

What would be said in Great Britain of any such conduct as this? Ref- 
erence is made by Colonel Colyar, in the able argument to which I have re- 
ferred, to the celebrated Knox cases in England. When it was the custom 
of the chief of cabinet to issue warrants for the seizure of property, without 
describing the property, and in some instances for the seizure of persons, 
without the names or description of such persons, suits were brought by 
those thus illegally arrested and by those whose property was thus illegally 
seized; and after a long litigation, in which the Government defending the 
suits expended nearly £100,000, the Court of King's Bench held that the 
warrants were illegal, that the defendant in every such case was entitled to 
recover damage of the agent of the Government. The English law and con- 
stitution protect the person and property of the subjects of that Government 
from illegal seizure. 

Lord Chatham is reported to have said : " The poorest man may in his 
cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail ; its 
roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter, but 
the King of England may not enter. All his forces dare not cross the threshold 
of the ruined tenement." 

This is the regard which the laws of England pay to the rights of person 
and property. The Constitution of the United States says that no citizen 
shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or properly" without due process of law; 
and yet in the teeth of the English common law and of the Constitution of 
the United States an internal revenue system is maintained which practically 
sets aside all these safeguards and leaves life, liberty and property subject to 
the whims and assaults of irresponsible revenue agents. 

Now, a word on the Bessemer-steel question as it has been put to us so 
often. I have never seen the day when I would not have voted to reduce the 
tariff on steel rails. The Southern Railway and Steamship Association a 
few years ago, at my instance, passed resolutions memorializing Congress for 
a reduction of that tariff, because we thought it was unreasonable and unjust. 
I say now it is, and I am ready to vote with the senator from Kentucky to 
reduce it, and I have never seen the day when I would not have done it ; 
therefore I am not to be misrepresented on that question. 

But let us look now a moment at the working of it. While I utterly repu- 
diate the doctrine of a high tariff making low goods, as that clap-trap phrase 
is usually pronounced in the country, still it is a fact which we cannot get 
away from that where an article is protected unjustly, it may be as it was in 
this case even to the point of prohibition, it builds up the industries of this 
country until they reach the point where competition between themselves 
puts down the price immensely below what it was when those interests were 
first protected by a high tariff. 

Take this very article of Bessemer steel. I have some knowledge of the 
working of that business. It was my duty some years since to make a pur- 
chase of that article for a railroad interest which I represent. For the first 
1 ever purchased 1 paid f 130 per ton in cash. A few days since my agent 
purchased in Pennsylvania 2,0u0 tons of as good steel as that was for $38.50 
per ton. The first was |130 per ton ; the last purchased was $38.50 per ton. 



748 APPENDIX. 

The tarift" was the same in both cases. It was $28 per ton when I purchased 
the first, and it is $28 per ton now. 

What reduced it? Why is it not $130 a ton now; or if not that much, 
■why is it lower than it was? How did it get down to $38.50? It was in 
this way: A tariff was put on that was almost prohibitory; the article was 
in demand; lar^e amounts of capital were invested ; able cajiitalists here 
purchased the patent-right for tliis country, and then put millions of money 
into mills to manufacture it; and they have built up a competition among 
themselves ; and that has reduced it from $130 to $38.50, while there haa 
been no chancre in the rate of the tariff. 

Therefore there is a great deal of fallacy in all these statements about the 
exorbitant tariff on Bessemer steel ruining this country. The railroads had 
to pay (and the people have to pay for it, of course, in the end) unreasonable 
rates for the article at the start. Why was it that we had to pay at that 
day $130 a ton? If we had not put up mills to make it in this .country, it is 
doubtful whether we should not be paying $130 a ton or some other very 
high rate to day for it, for the foreign manufacturer having the monopoly 
would have put his own price upon it, and therefore we should pi-obably 
have to pay double or three times to-day what we do pay to our own mills. 
By this system those mills are now located here ; the capital is in them ; the 
plant is there; and they cannot be removed ; and we have this competition 
for all time to come. I am willing to vote to reduce the tariff on steel to a 
reasonable rate, as I have always been, and give the benefit of it to the 
people. 

Take another illustration — 

Mr. Beck. The senator is aware, I suppose, that he can buy Bessemer- 
steel rails for $24 or $25 a ton, free on board, in Liverpool. 

Mr. Brown. But I suppose Bessemer steel, as well as everything else, 
ought to pay some of the $250,000,000 we need to carry on the Government. 
I think it ought not to pay as high a rate as it now pays. But if we adopt 
the system of collecting all the revenue by internal taxation, then the senator 
from Kentucky is right, and we can get it at $25 in Liverpool. And then 
we will have to pay a direct tax about seven times as much as our present 
State tax on our lands, our hort^es, mules, cattle, hogs, and sheep. The 
people prefer that the railroads pay it on Bessemer steel rather than have 
direct tax. 

The very fact that we have had this competition here has compelled them 
to come down with the price abroad, and if we had not the competition here 
we could not get it at any such price. If we had built no Bessemer mills in 
this country we should have had no steel delivered here at $24 a ton. The 
difference is now between $24, if the senator's figures are right, and I sup- 
pose they are, and $38.50. Well, I would take off part of the duty on that 
article, and I would still make tlie railroads that use Bessemer steel pay part 
of the tariff, pay part of the $250,000,000 that somebody has to pay. 

But when the senator asked me the last question or made the last state- 
ment, I was going to refer to another article in which my own State is in- 
terested. Prior to the war, Georgia and the Carolinas had almost a monopoly 
of the rice market. Rice at that day did not sell for more than $2 per hun- 
dred pounds. There was 20 per cent, ad valorem duty upon it. We had 
slave labor, and we made it almost as chea;ply as the Chinaman and the 
people in the East do, and we had a monopoly of the market. Not a pound 
came in at 20 per cent. Foreign rice at that time could not compete. 

But war clouds overshadowed the country, and the contending armies met, 
and the blockade closed our ports, and Southern rice was not permitted to 
go to Northern markets. What did rice go up to in the United States? 



APPENDIX. 749 

While there was plenty of it in the East, in China and other countries, with 
the ports thrown open to it at f2 a hundred, it could not come because the 
rice raised by slave labor was lower than that. But as soon as the Southern 
rice was cut off, and no longer went into the market of the United States, 
that part of it occupied by the Union government and armies, it rose to from 
$12 lo $14 per hundred. Why did not tlie foreigners bring it in and kindly 
pell it to us at iji a hundred? Because war had crushed the production in 
this country, and they at once took advantage of our necessity to run the 
price up tliree or four times as high as it had been before. 

Since the war, nothing could have been done re-establishing the old rice 
plantations had it not been for the tariff, because now under the present 
system of culture the foreiurn rice-maker gets labor at a cost of less than half 
what we can get it for. Drop protection and that industry drops, and one 
hundred and fifty to one hundred sixty thousand people supported by the 
rice culture are thrown out of employment, and valuable plantations are 
thrown back into the forest. What has been the result V It was said that 
the tariff on rice was too high. The result has not been at the present price 
to prevent it from coming in. But nearly half of all the rice the people of 
the United States now use is imported, and it came down in 1880 and 1881 
to $1 25 a hundred. 

When you put a tariff on home rice and protected it fo that the business 
could go forward, the foreigner dropped the price ot his rice from $14 a hun- 
dred, which he could no longer get, and he now makes it and briugs it here 
and sells it to us at $4.5') in competition with the home rice. 

Therefore it is idle to say, if we want to talk like candid men on these 
questions, that a tariff protecting largely any industry does not cause capital 
to be invested in that industry and build it up so that it can after a while 
do with less protection. That is the working of it in every instance almost 
where you ti'ace the course of it all along through our tariff history. Bes- 
semi'r steel is one instance, and rice is another notable instance. 

When our home factories did not make the Bessemer steel to anything 
like the supply, the foreign manufacturers brought it here and sold it at a 
price laid down in the interior of Georgia at $I3() a ton. We protected un- 
reasonably, as it seemed at the time, the home manufacturer of this article, 
and the result has been that now the price is down by competition among 
ourselves to f :38.oO a ton. 

Mr. President, I hold in my hand the statistics of the imported merchan- 
dise for the year ending June 30, 1882, and 1 see that the wiiole amount of 
goods imported for consumption was $716,000,000 worth. Of that amount 
$210,000,000 came in on the free list, — I give only the round numbers; 
$505,000,000 on the dutiable list paid taxes; $505,000,000 is the whole 
amount of dutiable goods imported at the ports of the United States for the 
fiscal year ending June 30, 1882. With a duty of 40 per cent, ad valorem 
that would produce only $202,000,000 revenue. That will not do. You are 
obliged therefore — and tliere is no es -ape from the statistics — if next year 
is as this year, to put an average tax of more than 40 per cent, ad valorem 
on every dollar's worth of goods imported on the dutiable list to raise 
$202,000,000. You must have at least $250,000,000 from customs, and your 
internal revenue in the bargain. 

You must raise, say, $250,000,000 by customs, and then you must have on 
all dutiable goods imported during the year, if there be the same quantity 
this year, a tax of about 50 per cent, ad valorem. That is terrible upon 
trace-chains and looking-glasses and shovels and picks and hoes and clothes 
and hats and shoes and boots and other articles. The people could abso- 
lutely get them for 50 per cent, less than they do if there was no tax. If we 



750 



APPENDIX. 



did not have to support this Government we should be relieved of an im- 
mense amount of taxation. One senator spoke of the very high taxation ; 
that it is 51) per cent, or 40 per cent., and no doubt preferred 20 per cent, ad 
valorem. Some people forget that we have to support the Government, and 
put about 50 per cent, upon every dollar's worth that is imported, that is 
dutiable, to raise the amount necessary, which we are obliged to have. 

How are you going to raise it? Lower all these duties to 20 per cent, and 
see whether you can do it. I know that the advocates of extreme free trade 
will not raise all the revenue by internal taxation, but they say if you lower 
the duties the etfect will be to increase the quantity imported. Well, I sup- 
pose we shall not import much moi-e or much less than we need. I presume 
that all the goods needed this year came in ; all we were in a condition to 
pay for came in. 

It is true that by lowering the tariff to a point where you cannot get the 
necessaiy revenue out of it. you can destroy home industry. If you reduce 
the tariff enough to greatly stimulate the importation so as to destroy our 
home industries, I do not know that you will get enough from it to make 
$250,000,000 a year, or to make, as I think it ought to be, with the internal- 
revenue system" abolished, the entire amount of -84:00,000,000 that is needed 
to support this Government. 

I sympathize very cordially with the senators on this floor or gentlemen 
anyw'liere else who desire to see to it that full, equal, and exact justice is 
done to the people and that no unnecessary burdens are saddled upon them. 
But if I were to tell the country that all the taxes upon the goods bought by 
the poor man and the rich man and everybody who consumes are an unnec- 
essary burden, I should feel as if I was demagoging a little, for I should be 
keeping back from them another important statement that must in honesty 
and fair play accompany that, that if you did not pay it in that way you 
would have to pay it upon your property, and it would be as long as it is 
broad usually and as broad as it is long in the end. There would be a differ- 
ence in the class who pay it, and that difference under the system of collect- 
ing it internally would be against the farmer, in favor of the gambler, in fa- 
vor of the rich who pay most of the tariff. The present system saddles more 
of it on the rich man and the gambler. 

Take an illustration. 1 know a farmer in Georgia who is worth $20,000 
clear of indebtedness. He is a man of sense; he economizes closely ; he has 
good land and a good deal of it ; he has horses and mules and cows and sheep 
and hogs and all property which a man in that condition usually draws around 
him. He and his family dress very plainly; he makes almost everything 
upon the plantation that he needs; bu\s a little iron, a little salt, a little 
sugar and coffee — what we call strictly the necessaries of life; and he pays a 
very small proportion of the taxes to support this Government compared with 
the amount of property he owns. I know a gambler in Atlanta who is not 
worth $5C0 of any visible property but is one of the finest dressed men in 
town every time you see him. He wears gold rings upon his fingers and dia- 
monds upon his breast, fine boots, hats — and everything he wears is fine. 
That man under the tariff pays a great deal more of the taxes that now sup- 
port this Government than the old farmer 1 have spoken of who is worth 
$20,000 in property. If you change it and collect it by the internal-revenue 
system or direct taxation you lift the burden off the shoulder of the gambler 
and put it upon the shoulder of the old planter. That will be the working 
of it. There is no getting away from facts, and those are the facts in just 
such instances as I mention. 

1 would vote here, as a rule, to exempt from the tariff almost everything 
raised abroad that we do not produce or manufacture in this country. Take 



APPENDIX. 751 

as an illustration tea and coffee. Neither is raised in this country, and we 
compete with nobody on these articles, and a tariff upon them protects no- 
body. I would keep them perpetually on the free-list. I would tax sugar, 
although it is used as generally as tea and coffee, because it is produced in 
this country, and I would give the laborers who produce sugar a part of the 
beuefit of the protection that the $25U,000,000 or $300,UOO,OoO which we have 
to raise is obliged to give somebody. 

The great problem to my mind is how to properly adjust this burden and 
how properly to divide this protection. I would make some exceptions to 
the rule I have just laid down. There are certain articles of luxury, used bv 
the rich alone, made abroad that we do not compete with that I would make 
pay a high tariff and bear that much of the burdens of the Government; 
but unless there was something of that character while you relieve the com- 
mon people and the poor people entirely, I would in every instance put the 
tariff on that which would protect some American industry or American re- 
source. In other words, I would give the preference to the labor of my own 
country rather than the labor of a foreign country. I would relieve as far 
as possible all the laboring masses of this country by placing the tariff on the 
goods they produce by their labor in preference to that which is not produced 
by American labor. And in taking that position 1 do not depart from the 
traditions of the fathers ; I stand squarely on the old Democratic platform 
prior to the war, and I will not be driven from it no matter how many new 
lights there may be who have concluded that they may do better than that 
by protecting foreign labor against hume labor. 

The position of the Democratic party then was a tariff for revenue with 
incidental protection to American labor, raising no more money than was ab- 
solutely necessary to an economical administration of this Government. 
There is precisely where I stood then. The first vote I ever cast for a Pies- 
idential candidate was for Mr. Polk on that very platform. There 1 have 
stood ever since, and there I intend to stand with my feet firmly fixed upon 
that platform. We triumphed on that platform before the war, and I tell 
my Democratic friends here that when we again triumph it will have to be 
upon that platform. It is the old Democratic platform, and 1 invite my 
Democratic friends who have wandered from it to return to it again. You 
caunot succeed in a Presidential campaign if the people of this country are 
satisfied that you are antagonistic in your feelings and your action to Ameri- 
can production and American labor, and that you are willing to put foreign 
productions and foreign labor in a condition of preference to home produc- 
tions and home labor. There are too many laborers interested in this ques- 
tion for any party to succeed upon such a platform. 

I have noticed the capital made by our Republican friends on the other 
side of this Chamber out of this question ; and while they go as I think to the 
extreme, and I do not agree with them, especially with that portion of them 
who say that they are for protection tor protection's sake, yet 1 saw enough 
in the last Presidential campaign, when we went before the people of these 
United States upon the platform of a tariff for revenue only, saying nothmg 
about incidental protection, throwing aside the whole doctrine of the fathers 
of the Democracy of former days — I say I saw enough of the effect then 
in Connecticut and New Jersey and Indiana and probably in other States 
to convince me that you will never carry them again on any such platform, 
and you will never succeed without them or part of them. 

We may say what we will about it, we may appeal to the prejudices of the 
people as much as we will and say, You are paying 2*^, 30, iO, 50, 60, or 70 
per cent, upon goods, and you would get them a great deal cheaper if we 
had no tariff, but you cannot mislead the people of this country on this 



752 APPENDIX. 

question. They understood it, the capital of the country understands it, the 
niauufacturers understand it. the bniikers and capitalists of every class un- 
derstand it, the laborers understand it. They know there has to be a fund 
raised by taxation to support this Government, and they are intelligent 
enough to understand that it has to be done either by tariii on imports or by 
internal taxation, where it comes right home to everybody. 

Under the tariff system it is an indirect tax, the larger portion of it paid 
by the wealthier class, and those who consume most of the fine goods. And 
being indirect, no one seems to feel it as they would a direct levy of the 
amount upon that property at home. Unless the appropriations can be 
greatly reduced, we arc obliged to raise about $400,00(i,U(J0 this year; f250,- 
000,000 of that by tariff as heretofore, and the rest by the internal-revenue 
system unless we repeal it. If we repudiate this principle, and levy the 
whole by a direct tax, then we have to raise .1400,000,000 by internal taxation 
alone. As matters now stand Georgia's share of this would be about $10,- 
000.000 annually, which the tax-gatherers would collect from our people. 
Senators here have talked about taxes upon the plow, and the hoe, and the 
trace-chain, and other articles purchased by the farmer. If we adopt the in- 
ternal-revenue system for raising the whole amount which each State will 
have to pay, each citizen will have to pay seven or eight times as much tax 
in gold each year to support the Federal Government as he now pays to sup- 
port the State Government. Then a heavy tax would be assessed upon the 
land, the horses, the mules, the cows, the hogs, the sheep and the goats, and 
the plows and the hoes, and the spades and the trace-chains, and the picks 
and the shovels, and even the skillets of our people. The senator or repre- 
sentative who by his vote adopts this principle, if it should ever become a 
law, will meet among his constituents a storm of indignation such as he has 
never before witnes>ed. 

Instead of raising this immense amount by direct taxation upon all the 
property of the people, let it be raised as our fathers raised it, by a tariff. 
And in laying the tariff let it be so adjusted as to raise the necessary revenue 
upon imports, and at the same time afford incidental protection to American 
industry. You cannot raise f 250,000,000 on imported articles consumed in 
the United States without giving $250,000 000 of protection to somebody. I 
would so distribute the protection as to give part of it to manufactured arti- 
cles of cotton and wool and silk, of iron and steel and the ores that support 
them, and pa.rt among other manufactures. And I would distribute part of 
it among the wool-growers, the hemp-growers, the flax-growers, the tobacco- 
growers, the fruit-growers, the sugar-growers, the rice-growers, the shep- 
herds, and the herdsmen. In a word, I would so distribute it as to protect 
as far as possible against foreign productions and foreign labor all the pro- 
d ictions and all the labor of all the producing and laboring classes of the 
United States. I would put upon the free-list generally, as already stated, 
such foreign productions as we do not raise and such foreign manufactures 
as we cannot compete with, and raise the amount of money we need upon 
such articles as we do raise and such manufactures as we make. 

We have to raise the amount of money necessary to support the Govern- 
ment, and what we raise upon one class of articles we do not have to put up- 
on another. Therefore I prefer the first plan, that is to raise the revenue 
by tariff. And I will go further and say that I entertain no doubt that 
nine-tenths of the voters of this country prefer that plan, and no party can 
succeed at a general election that does not support the first plan. 

i\Ir. President, I want to discuss this question fairly. I shall resort to no 
anecdote, nothing to amuse you. If my premises are unsound or my argu- 
ment is unsound, of course the senate will see it at once and it will be met 



APPENDIX. 753 

with a successful reply. If my position is impregnable there will be no reply. 
But I desire to discuss the question on principle. We have to meet it on 
principle at the bar of public opinion, and we had better take a proper posi- 
tion upon it. 

Xow, as to the details of this bill there are many of them that I do not like. 
Some I will vote for ; some I will not vote for. I do not know yet whether 
I shall vote for the bill or whether I shall vote against it. I have no idea 
it will be anything like a perfect bill. We have seen enough to know that 
we have stricken down the tariff on certain articles very low. For instance, 
on the motion of my friend the senator from Texas [Mr. Coke], the other 
day, when he proposed to reduce glue, I believe it was, to 10 per cent, ad 
valorem. I voted for it because iiis State produces more horns and hoofs out 
of which it is made than any other State in the Union, and if he and his 
colleague were satisfied with that I would vote for it, though now glue is 
■10 per cent, below the average ad valorem that it takes to support this Gov- 
ernment. 

While glue is at 10 per cent, ad valorem other articles must pay 40, 50, 80, 
or 100 per cent. It is an exceedingly delicate affair to take up this bill, or 
any other bill, and so adjust all the details as to give just such a tariff as 
ought to be given in the case of each particular article. No committee can 
do it, and I presume no legislative assembly can do it. Something will be 
wrong. There will be some inequality. Therefore, the very best we can do 
is an approximation to what is right. We may make some mistakes in these 
details in voting on particular articles. I may have voted for too high a tariff 
on certain articles and for too low on others in the opinion of other senators. 
Doubtless I have. All of it does not suit me; but I intend to do the best I 
can, voting on each question as it comes up after it has been discussed, to 
perfect the bill as nearly as possible. 

When it is done we shall have much to find fault with; but it is one step 
in the right direction. The present tariff is unequal, unjust, and in some 
respects iniquitous ; it wants modification and change ; the revenues of the 
Government are such that they will bear reduction, and reduction ought to 
be made ; and if it will not meet the expenses, then we must reduce the ex- 
penditures until it will meet them. But still the question comes back on 
the details, how low are you going to arrange it? If you put 50 per cent, 
ad valorem on everything, which is about the amount it would take on all 
the goods imported for consumption which were dutiable last year, you do 
not do justice. 

Some of the N'ew England spinners, who have had protection for forty or 
fifty years, do not need 50 per. cent. now. They have been rocked in this 
cradle long enough. They are no longer little children. They have gone 
through the period of youth ; they are approximating the period of vigorous 
manhood; they have machinery now, many of them, that is equal probably 
to the best anywhere ; they have skilled labor that is almost as good as you 
can find in Europe, and probably much of it is as good ; it costs a little 
higher, and that is the greatest difficulty. But some of them neither ask nor 
expect 50 per cent., nor are they entitled to it. 

On the other hand, take a struggling interest in the South — any of those 
we are trying to build up ; if you put 50 per cent, on that and 50 per cent, 
on New England, the one in its infancy and the other in its manhood, you 
do not do justice between them. We have reached the point now where 
the South sees some prospect. New England has had protection for half a 
century. She has risen to that point where she will soon be able to take 
care of herself. I would take off part of that tariff and I would put it 
on where it is more needed. 
48 



754 APPENDIX. 

These are my views generally on this question. There are many details 
that I should like to go into that neither the time of the senate nor my 
strength will permit me to do. This is the general outline of my position on 
the tariff. Acting on the principles I have laid down, I shall vote in the case 
of each particular item here as I think most just under all the circumstances; 
so distribute the protection as to build up the weak that need fostering, and 
withdraw protection as much as may be from the strong that do not need it. 
Taking this view, I desire to say but little on the iron question. It is a 
question in which I have some interest myself, and therefore it is not proper 
that I should say much, but, as one of the senators from Georgia, it is my 
duty to speak for her. 

Therefore, unpleasant or perhaps improper as it may be for me to discuss 
that question, as I am interested in it, I desire to say that Georgia and Ala- 
bama and Tennessee and South Carolina and North Carolina and Virginia 
are immensely interested in that question. Some of the greatest deposits of 
iron on the face of the earth are found in those States. All we need is devel- 
opment, and some of the fruits that protection has given in the case of Besse- 
mer steel in reducing prices down two-thirds will be felt probably in a similar 
degree there. I do not mean that there will be two-thirds reduction upon 
present prices, however, because that would be clear below the point of pro- 
duction. 

But what I do mean is that we can build up by a judicious system an immense 
interest there with immense power for the future and immense wealth to 
that section. What made England wealthy and powerful as she is to-day ? 
Many causes, you may say, but what was probably the leading one ? What 
probably did more to develop her power and her immense strength than 
any other thing ? Her iron interest and her coal interest fully developed ; 
immense amounts of capital have been put into it ; the development has 
been carried to the highest point, and it has given her a power and a prestige 
that is beyond comparison ; and while she was formerly one of the strongest 
protection powers in the world — she even required her dead to be buried in 
woolens, to protect the woolen interest — she has built up her great interests 
by protection till, like the Bessemer steel men, now she can go before the 
world, throw her ports open, and undersell everybody. The South cannot 
for a long time reach the position England has reached, but we have a great 
deal more coal, a great deal more iron, in the three States of Tennessee, 
Georgia, and Alabama than there is all told in the islands of Great Bi-itain. 

I recollect three or four years ago when Mr. Bell, president of the Iron 
and Steel Association of Great Britain, visited that section and inspected 
our iron and coal resources. While riding with him on the railroad train I 
said to him, " Mr. Bell, I have never had the pleasure to visit your country; 
I know the great power that you derive fi'om the great coal and iron interests 
and deposits of Great Britain ; how do yours compare in quantity with what 
you have seen in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee ? " His reply, in a quick 
nervous manner, was, " Ours is a speck, sir, a mere speck compared with 
yours." We have six times, probably ten times as much mineral wealth in 
the section that I now refer to as Great Britain had before a pick was ever 
used on her deposit. 

I do not think it is wise to adopt a policy in our tariff laws or any other 
legislation that crushes out that interest and invites the products of this im- 
mense English capital and English labor to come in here and occupy this field 
with their productions and take charge of it. If you will put a rate of tariff on 
iron low enough to stop the furnaces of the United States, how long do you 
suppose it will be before iron brought from England to this country, like rice 
brought from Asia here in 1862, will go up one, two, or three fold ? It is the 



APPENDIX. 765 

fact that you produce it here in immense quantities and stimulate direct com- 
petition among yourselves and meet them with competition that keeps down 
the price to the consumer. Blot out the furnaces and rolling-mills of this 
country, and then look out for your trace-chains and all your other iron arti- 
cles that have been mentioned, and you will soon feel the weight of English 
power upon your prosperity. You had better not do it, in my opinion. 

Now, a word in reference to the pending question, and I have done. This is a 
proposition to put a tariff on iron ore, as 1 understand it. The present rate on 
iron ore is 20 per cent, ad valorem, which amounts to 56 cents and a fraction 
per ton. This bill proposes to lower that rate, as it is reported by the commit- 
tee, 6 and a fraction cents per ton. I think it would be unwise to do it. 
As I see by a statement made by the chairman of the national executive com- 
mittee of the iron-ore producers, there are in three or four mines on Lake 
Superior 16,000 persous engaged in this business, supporting about 50,000 
people. I speak of that particular locality; I have not the statistics at hand 
about any other. They have invested in the Marquette district, as the sta- 
tistics here state, $33,000,000, and in the Menomonee district •'$18,000,000 ; 
making f 51,000,000 invested there in mining alone. Then they have built, 
as is stated, three railroads there simply for the purpose of hauling this ore 
to the iron furnaces at different places, mostly toward Pennsylvania and in 
the West. Those railroads, that are used for scarcely anything else except 
tlie transportation of iron ore, have cost, one $19,000,000 in round numbers, 
making a total investment for working the ore in those two districts alone 
$?1,000,000. There are other portions of the country where there are very 
large operations of this character going on. I suppose I might say on a sort 
of guess, for I have not the data before me, that there are $200,000,000 now 
invested in the United States in the iron-ore business, and it maintains over 
100,000 people. I do not want to strike down that interest. While it may 
be true that it is not in the interior, but on the lakes, 1 want to take in the 
whole Gounti'y in a broad view of tliis subject. Therefore I vote for the 
amount that was fixed by the pig-iron convention at 

Mr. Sherman. I happen to know, as the senator is looking for the recom- 
mendation of the convention of all the iron manufacturers, that they agreed 
after a full conference, all the parties interested 

Mr. Brown. On 85 cents a ton. 

Mr. Sherman. They agreed finally on 85 cents unanimously. 

Mr. Brown. I was looking for the place where that convention was held. 

Mr. Sherman. Eighty-five cents a ton for the ore. 

Mr. Brown. There were but two concerns in the United States that ob- 
jected to that, as it is stated here, and one of them 

Mr. Sherman. It was the Bessemer Steel Works that objected to it, and 
some other company. They will be found in the testimony taken before the 
tariff commission, if it is desired. 

Mr. Brown. It was two of the Pennsylvania steel works, as I remember — 
I do not recollect the names and I cannot turn to them at this minute — but of 
all the pig-iron manufacturers of the United States in convention, after fully 
discussing this question, there were none who objected to 85 cents ; there were 
but the two concerns of any character, and those were two large steel mills, 
that objected to it. It seems to me that the manufacturers of pig-iron ought 
to be pretty fair judges, when they meet in convention and when they have 
to buy the ore, of what the laborer ought to have for the ore delivered at the 
furnaces. And as they have all settled upon 85 cents per ton tariff and no 
manufacturer of pig-iron objects to it, I am willing to vote to give to these 
laborers the 85 cents per ton, which is a rise on the present rate of from 56 
and a fraction to 85 cents. It seems to me that it is reasonable and little 



756 APPENDIX. 

enough, and therefore I shall vote, when we reach that proposition, for the 
amount of tariff that was agreed upon by that convention as proper for the 
protection of those engaged in furnishing iron ore. 



Argument of Ex-Gov. Joseph E. Brown, jn 1866, on the Uncon- 
stitutionality OF the Test Oath as applied to Attorneys- 
at-Law in the United States District Court at Savannah, on 

THE MOTION OF HoN. WiLLIAM LaW, WHO APPLIED TO BE PERMITTED 
to resume his practice in THE CoURT WITHOUT TAKING THE OaTH. 

Hon. John Erskine presiding in said Court. 

This argument was one of the first made in the South upon the uuconstitutionality 
of the test oath. As will be seen by its perusal, it takes almost the identical positions 
assumed by the Supreme Court of the United States at a later period when they 
adjudged the test oath uncoustitutioual. In the case of Judge Law, Judge Erskine in 
an able opiuiou held the. act to be unconstitutional, and admitted Judge Law and the 
other attorneys to practice in his court. The decision afterwards made by the 
Supreme Court was almost identical with that made by Judge Erskine at that early 
period. 

In the United States District Court, Judge Erskine, according to appointment, heard 
the arguments of Judge Law and Ex-Gov. Joseph E. Browu upon the unconstitution- 
ality of the Test Oath as applicable to lawyers, the question having arisen from the 
motion of the Hon. William Law, to be permitted to continue his practice in the 
court in which he had practiced for forty-nine years, without taking the oath. 

Gov. Brown said : 
May it please Your Honor : 

I am well aware of the great importance of the question now under con- 
sideration. He who denies the validity of a solemn act of Congress on 
account of its unconstitutionality, should do so with deference and respect 
for the department of the government by which it is enacted, as well as for 
the judicial tribunal which is asked to declare it null and void. I trust I 
approach this question in a proper spirit, and with proper motives. In what 
I have to say I state in advance that it is not my intention to reflect in the 
slightest degree upon the conduct or to question the motives of any officer of 
the government. After the scenes of anarchy and confusion through which 
we have passed, I feel much gmtified to see military rule once more give place 
to civil, and to see the courts once more thrown open for the redress of griev- 
ances and the general administration of justice. I trust they may never 
again be compelled to give place to military tribunals or military rule. Of 
the peace and quiet which is being restored to the country, I would say as 
the great English commentator says of his goxennnent, Esio perpetua I In 
the discussion of this question I am satisfied that reason and authority are 
more in demand than declamation or even eloquence. If I possessed the lat- 
ter, which I do not claim, this is not the proper occasion for its display. As 
I have copied most of the authorities which I cite literally, and as they are 
numerous and I have not access at present to some of the books from which 
they are taken, I shall read them, with the exception of some three or four, 
from the manuscript copy which I have before me. 

It is solemnly declared in the great charter of English liberty that : " No 
freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold or liberties, 
or free customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or otherwise destroyed or con- 
demned, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." 

Judge Blackstone says of this provision in the great charter, that it pro- 
tected every individual of the nation in the free enjoyment of his life, his 
liberty, and his property, unless declared to he forfeited by the judgment of his 



APPENDIX. 757 

peers, or the law of the land. [Com vol. 4, page 424.] Again, in vol. 1, page 
139, he says : " And by a vai-iety of ancient statutes«it is enacted that no 
man's lands or goods shall be seized into the king's hands against the great 
charter and the law of the land ; and that no man shall be disinherited, nor 
put out of franchises or freehold, unless he be duly brought to nnxicer, and be 
forejudged by course of law ; and if anything be done to the contrary it shall 
be redressed and holden for none." 

Mr. Vattel, in his standard work upon the law of nations, page 33, while 
tre iting of the principal objects of good govermn^n'', says: "The society is 
established with a view of procui-ing to those who are its members, the neces- 
saries, conveniences, and even pleasures of life, and in general everything 
necessary to their happiness — of enabling each individual peaceably to enjoy 
his own property, and to obtain justice with safety and certainty." 

Again, he says : " The State ought to encourage labor, to animate industry, 
to excite abilities, to propose honors, rewards, privileges, and so to order mat- 
ters that every one may live by his industry." 

It is laid down in the Declaration of American Independence, as a self-evi- 
dent truth, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalien- 
able rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the j^ursuit of happiness; 
that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving 
their just powers from the consent of the governed. 

By the above quotations and others that might be added, which are doubt- 
less familiar, to your Honor, it will be seen that the celebrated charter of 
English liberty, the language of the great European author, and the Ameri- 
can Declaration of Independence, all concur in laying down as fundamental 
principles, which underlie the structure of good government in every free 
state, which no legislative body has a right to ignore, disregard or violate ; 
that it is the duty of the government not only to encourage labor and stimu- 
late industry, but to so order matters that every man may live by his indus- 
try. The pursuit of happiness in every innocent manner agreeable to his 
inclinations ; the exercise of honest industry in any trade or profession 
which he may select for the purpose of procuring a livelihood ; the acquisi- 
tion of propertij by his labor, and the protection by government of his life, 
liberty, person and property against every illegal or unjust violation or inva- 
sion, are inherent inalienable rights of the citizen or subject, which no gov- 
ernment can disregard or violate without incurring the just censure of 
enlightened reason for the exercise of tyranny and oppression. But if the 
legislative department of the government, no matter by what motive it may 
be actuated, should so far transcend the proper boundaries which have been 
prescribed to its authority, as to invade these sacred rights, protected as they 
are by a law higher than its enactments, it is the pride of our system, that an 
Independent judiciary, whose duty it is to hold the scales of justice in equi- 
poise, as well between the citizen and the government as between citizen and 
citizen, will vindicate the majesty of the law, and maintain the good faith and 
justice of the government, by declaring all such enactments as violate the 
fundamental law, inoperative, null and void. 

Let us apply these great principles to the case now before your Honor. 
An attorney of this court, whose name has appeared upon the rolls as an offi- 
cer of court for nearly fifty years, whose private and professional character 
are of the most elevated rank ; who has filled with distinction the position of 
a judge ; who was a Union man as long as there was a possibility of prevent- 
ing the rupture; who never bore arms against the Goveimment of the United 
States, or held office under the Confederate States; who has violated no rule 
of the common law ; committed no contempt of court ; collected no money 
which he has refused to pay over ; acted in bad faith to no client ; nor has 



758 APPENDIX. 

he been charged, indicted, or convicted under any penal law of this State, or 
of the United States ; and who has received a full pardon from the President 
of the United States for any and every act which might, even by implication, 
be construed as a violation of the law, because he cannot take a test oath that 
he never "aided, counselled, countenanced, or encouraged" any one who bore 
arms against the United States, is to be driven from the bar unless your 
Honor can protect his rights by the decision which you may feel it your duty 
to pronounce in this case. 

While he refuses to take the test oath, who says he has been guilty of 
rebellion, or treason, or other crime or misdemeanor, prohibited by any law 
of the United States ? What officer of the government stands here as his 
accuser, and upon what charge and specifications ? What provision of the 
penal code has he violated, and when and where did he do it, and who are 
the witnesses against him ? What grand jury has indicted him, and upon 
what charge? What petit jury has found him guilty ? What judge has pro- 
nounced sentence upon him, and when was it done, and where is the record ? 

One of the fundamental maxims of the common law which has been 
approved by the ablest jurists and sanctioned by the wisdom of ages is, that 
every man shall be presumed to be innocent till the contrary is proven. The 
attorney is entitled to the benefit of this salutary rule. He stands before 
you to-day as did the woman, over eighteen hundred years ago, before the 
Judge of all the earth, with no accuser, and I trust the judgment of your 
Honor will be : neither do I accuse thee. He stands with the presumption 
of innocence in his favor, and as no proof is offered to the contrary that pre- 
sumption becomes conclusive. How then is this court to punish him by the 
forfeiture of his property in his profession, and by taking from him his 
means of livelihood, for the commission of an offence of which the presump- 
tion of innocence, by a rule of law which you cannot disregard, is conclusive 
in his favor ? Such a proceeding would not only violate the great principles 
of Magna Ckarta, but would be subversive of the very foundations upon which 
our system of government rests. In place of the salutary rule above men- 
tioned, which has been consecrated by the wisdom of ages, it would establish 
the contrary one that every man is presumed to be guilty of a criminal viola- 
tion of the law till he proves his own innocence. If he has been guilty of no 
crime, all must agree that he should suffer no penalty or forfeiture. The 
very fact that it is proposed to forfeit his right to practice his profession for 
his support — presupposes, contrary to the truth, that his guilt has been estab- 
lished before a court of competent jurisdiction. Otherwise the forfeiture is 
an unwarrantable and defenceless violation of the great principles of organic 
law, laid down by the high authorities which I have quoted, and recognized 
by every enlightened jurist who has lived under free institutions, in every 
age. 

But it may be said that large numbers of persons, and among them many 
lawyers, have been guilty of treason, or of encouraging rebellion against the 
Government of the United States; and that Congress has adopted this mode 
of compelling each to discover under oath whether he is one of the number ; 
and if he refuses to make the discovery, that he shall be presumed to be 
guilty, and the confiscation of his property in his profession shall be the pen- 
alty. Truly, this is what Congress has attempted to do, but upon what princi- 
ple and by what right? If he has been guilty of a crime it is the right of the 
government to have him prosecuted, convicted and punished by the judgment 
of his peers or the law of the land ; but without such conviction the infliction 
of corporal punishment upon him, or the confiscation of his estate, or any part 
thereof, is unauthorized tyranny ; nor has the government any right to com- 
pel him to appear and give testimony against himself, to aid it in procuring 



APPENDIX. 759 

such conviction. Nemo tenebaiur prodere se ipsum is the well established rule 
of the common law, and is thus expounded by a very able and accurate 
American author: "That when the answer wall have a tendency to expose the 
witness to a penal liability, or to any kind of punishment, or to a criminal 
charge, or to a, forfeiture of his estate, the witness is not bound to answer. 
And if the fact to which he is interrogated forms but one link in the chain 
of testimony which is to convict him, he is protected. And if the witness 
declines answering, no inference of the truth of the fact is permitted to be 
drawn from that circumstance." [1 Greenl. Ev., sec. 451-453.] 

The Constitution of the United States, as originally formed, contained no 
provision guarantying to the citizen protection against the violation by Con- 
gress of this great first principle. But this protection is carefully provided 
in the fifth article of the amendments, proposed at the first session of the 
first Congress which was adopted in these words : 

" No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous 
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except cases 
ai'ising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in 
time of war or public danger ; nor shall any person be subject for the same 
offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall he be compelled 
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, lib- 
erty, or property without due process of law ; nor shall private property be 
taken for public iise without just compensation." 

This is the fundamental law of this land, and any act of Congress in vio- 
lation of it is inoperative, null and void, and it is the solemn duty of the 
courts so to declare it. And I beg your Honor to bear in mind that this arti- 
cle of the Constitution not only denies to Congress the power to compel any 
one to be a witness to criminate himself, but it declares plainly and posi- 
tively, that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process 
of law, giving property precisely the same protection which it gives to life or 
liberty. 

Has an attorney-at-law a property in his profession ? If so the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, as well as Magna Charta, declares that he shall not 
be deprived of it without due process of law. 

An attorney-at-law is an officer belonging to the courts of justice. [1 
Bacon's Abr., 474.] An officer is one who is lawfully invested with an office. 
[7 Bacon's Abr., 279.] Offices which are a right to exercise a public or pri- 
vate employment, and to take the fees and emoluments thereto belonging, 
are also incorporeal hereditaments, whether public, as those of magistrates, or 
private, as of bailiffs, receivers, and the like. For a man may have an estate 
in them, either to himself and his heirs, or for life, or for a term of years, or 
for during pleasure only. [Blackstone's Com., 36.] 

By these quotations it appears that a man may have an estate in an office. 
What is the meaning of the word estate ? In its most extensive sense it is 
applied to signify everything in which riches or fortune may consist, and 
includes personal and real property. [Bouvier's Law Diet., 516.] According 
to Judge Blackstone, hereditaments are a species of estate, and he declares 
an oflSce to be an incorporeal hereditament. 

An attorney-at-law is then, according to the authorities, an officer of the 
courts, legally invested with an office. That office is an estate, which may be 
for life, or for a term of years, or during pleasure. That estate is property. 
And the Constitution of the United States says no one shall be deprived of 
property without due process of law. 

It matters not whether it is attempted to be done by means of a test oath, 
compelling a party to criminate himself, or in what imaginable form, other 
than by due process of law, it is alike void, whatever may be the means 



760 APPENDIX. 

resorted to for its accomplishment. Wliat power then has Congress to 
deprive an attorney of his property in his profession, siuiply because he re- 
fuses to swear whether he has or has not violated the criminal law of the 
land, when he has neither been charged with, indicted or convicted of, any 
such violation V I deny that it has any such right. This attempt is in viola- 
tion of the fundamental law as expounded by the highest authorities, and is 
absurd within itself ; and I know of no rule governing courts which could 
justify your Honor in the enforcement of any such enactment. The statute 
is a nullity and must, in my opinion, be so held whenever and wherever it is 
brought in question before any intelligent court. 

I further invite your Honor's attention to the fact that the office of attor- 
ney and counsellor is recognized as well by the Constitution and laws of the 
United States as by the common law. 

In the 6th article of the amendments to the Constitution it is declared that 
in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy and 
public trial by an impartial jury of the State or district wherein the crime 
shall have been committed ; to be informed of the nature and cause of the 
accusation ; to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; to have com- 
pulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance 
of counsel for his defence. 

The judicial act of 1789 provides that in all the courts of the United States 
the parties may plead and manage their own causes personally ; or by the 
assistance of such counsel or attorney-at-law, as by the rules of said courts 
respectively, shall be permitted to manage or conduct causes therein. 

The Court will observe that the Congress of 1789 did not attempt to pre- 
scribe the qualifications of the attorney, or to say who shall or shall not 
l^ractice in the courts, or for what cause an attorney shall be stricken from 
the rolls. This is left, as it should be, to the courts or principal officer, to 
which the ofiBce of attorney is incident, to be determined by rule of courts. 

The ofgce of attorney-at-law is clearly incident to that of a court, or of 
the judge or judges of the court ; and the incident officer is only amenable to 
the principal officer, and may be removed by him — Congress has no such 
powers. In 7 Bacon's Abr., 284:, and the cases there cited, the law upon this 
subject is laid down in tlie following words : 

" Wherever an office is incident to another, such incident office is regularly 
grantable by him who hath the principal office. On this foundation it hath 
been held that the King's grant of the office of county clerk was void ; it 
being inseparably incident to the office of sheriff, and could not by any^aw 
or contrioince be taken away from him." 

If the King's grant of such incident office was void, and so held by his own 
courts, and it could not be taken away from the principal office by any law 
or contrivance, it follows that the King and Parliament together could not 
right Cully do it. Where then does the Congress of the United States, re- 
strained by a written Constitution, get power to do that which the King and 
Pcirliameut together in Great Britain, without such restraint, have no power 
to do? The office of county clerk in England, which from time immemorial 
has been an incident of the office of sheriff, is certainly no moi-e inseparably 
connected with the sheriff's office than is the office of attorney in this coun- 
try with that of the courts ; and yet the transcendent powei- of the King and 
Parliament cannot, without utter disregard of all principle and precedent, 
dejDrive the principal office of the control of the incident. 

I do not deny that Congress may lay down general rules regulating the 
proceedings of the courts and the conduct of attorneys. But I do deny that 
it can, without usurpation, destroy the constituted courts or deprive them of 
their legitimate control over the attorney ; or that it can deprive the attor- 



APPENDIX. 761 

iiey of his office when he has not been convicted of violating either the law 
of the land or the rules of the court. 

But I may be asked if there exists no power in the government to deprive 
an attorney of his right to practice. I reply unhesitatingly that there does 
not, unless he has forfeited it by his own misconduct, in the violation of the 
law of the land or the rules of the court, of which he must have been con- 
victed by due course of law, when the court of which he is an officer, and to 
which alone he is amenable, may strike his name from the rolls. As he is 
admitted by the court as an officer of court, without limitation as to time, or 
during good behavior, he may hold the office for life unless he forfeits it by 
misbehavior, of which he can never be convicted without trial. In Bacon's 
Abr., vol. 7, page 308, the law on this subject is laid down in the following 
clear and strong language: ' 

" If an office be granted to a man to have and enjoy so long as he shall 
behave himself well in it, the grantee hath an estate of freehold in the office ; 
for since nothing but his misbehaviors can determine his interest, no man can 
fix a shorter term than his life ; since it must be his own act (which the law 
does not presume to foresee,) which only can make his estate of shoi'ter con- 
tinuance than his life." 

This is the tenure by which the lawyer holds his office. And it is precisely 
the same by which the English judges and judges of the Courts of the United 
States hold their offices. Who ever heard of a judge of the United States 
Courts having been dismissed from office without previous trial and convic- 
tion of misbehavior ? 

I will now proceed to show (while the mode of trial is not the same,) that 
this is the rule applied by courts to attorneys : " An attorney may be struck 
fi'om the rolls for any ill practice, attended with fraud and corruption, and 
committed against the obvious rules of justice and common honesty." [1 
Bacon's Abr., 586.] 

This is the general rule of law upon the subject; but, as the following 
quotations will show, he will be heard when the charge has been preferred, 
and must be convicted before he will be deprived of his office. 

" When an attorney has been fraudulently admitted, or convicted after ad- 
mission of felony or other offence which renders him unfit to be continued as 
an attorney, he may be struck off the rolls." 

" And if an attorney practices after he has been convicted of forgery, per- 
jury, subornation of perjury, or common barratry, he is liable to be trans- 
ported." [Same authority, page 508.] 

" An attorney will be struck from the rolls when he has been convicted of 
subornation of perjury." [1 McCord's S. C. Reps., 379.] 

" But the court will not proceed against such attorney before conviction." 
[2 Halsted, 162.] 

"An attorney convicted of felony and punished for it was struck off the 
rolls." [Ex-parte Brownall, Cowper's Reps., 829.] 

" On a mere allegation that an attorney has been guilty of larceny his name 
will not be stricken off the rolls ; his conviction must precede." [Bacon's Abr., 
506.] 

These are the rules which govern in cases when it is proposed to strike an 
attorney from the rolls for a violation of public law, which will only be done 
upon his conviction of such violation. As he is an officer of the court and 
amenable to the court, he may be struck for a wilful violation of a rule of 
court, when his act involves criminality, or for a wilful contempt of court, 
but never without a hearing nor until his guilt is established. 

But I may be told that the Congress of the United States, in time of war, 
may seize and confiscate the property, whether in an office or any other kind. 



762 APPENDIX. 

of a citizen suspected of disloyalty or of having aided in rebellion, and de- 
prive him of liberty or property till he has proved, or at least sworn to, his 
innocence. I deny it. Congress has no right to violate the Constitution 
either in peace or war. 

The rule laid down in the Constitution in plain language is this : No per- 
son shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless 
on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury. The exception to the rule 
is that persons in the land or naval forces, and persons in the militia when 
in actual service in time of war or public danger may be held to answer with- 
out such indictment or presentment of a grand jury. Nor can Congress de- 
prive any person (not within the exception) of life, libei'ty or property,, 
without due process of law. Congress may by law provide for the forfeiture 
of the estate of a person attainted of treason, but then only during his life- 
time. There can be no forfeiture even for treason till there is a conviction, 
and the moment the person convicted is executed the forfeiture is at an end. 
And as there can be no corruption of blood, the estate, if inheritable, imme- 
diately descends to his legal heirs or devisees. In no other instance that 
occurs to me now does the Constitution give Congress the power to forfeit 
the estate or property of any one, for any offence whatever, except in the case 
of judges and other officers on conviction on impeachment, which works a 
forfeiture of their estates in their offices, but of no other property or estate, 
and never before conviction. 

Congress has, therefore, no right to deprive any lawyer of his estate in his 
office, or of any other property (not needed for public use upon just compen- 
sation) until he has been convicted. Nor has Congress any right to make 
him a witness to prove his own guilt, or to draw any inference of his guilt 
from his refusal to answer, [7 Porter's Reports, 381.] 

But suppose I were to admit that Congress does possess this power in time 
of war, and that the act was valid during the war, how does that deprive the 
lawyer of his office now ? The war is at an end ; and so proclaimed by our 
noble, patriotic President. The war is not only at an end, but the whole 
South has acquiesced in good faith in the results ; and her sons, whose honor 
is as stainless as their gallantry upon the battle-field was conspicuous, have 
pledged that honor, under the solemnity of an oath, for their future loyalty. 
That pledge will never be violated. I think your Honor will not accuse me 
of vain-boasting when I say I know something of the feelings and sentiments 
of the people of Georgia, and I tell you to-day that, whatever may have been 
their opinions as to the original abstract question of the right of secession, 
they have abandoned it forever. Since the days of Jefferson and Hamilton 
it has been, so to speak, a litigated question, and there was but one court 
which had jurisdiction to pronounce an authoritative decision in the case — 
that was the high Court of Appeals, recognized by all nations as of universal 
jurisdiction, where grave litigated questions between states or communities, 
that no other court has power to adjudicate, are in the last resort decided by 
wager of battle. This case has been carried before that court. Both parties 
were ably represented. The case is decided; the judgment is against us. 
We have already paid an enormous bill of cost. But we acquiesce in the 
result, and swear before Heaven that we will abide by it in good faith. 

Admit then, for the purpose of the argument, that the law was valid dur- 
ing the war, and where is its binding force now that the war is at an end ? 
In that view of it, we have the very case laid down in the books where the 
reason of the law having ceased, the law itself ceases. 

I have already shown, I trust, to the satisfaction of the court, that the office 
of a lawyer or his right to practice his profession is property, and as such that 
it is protected by the Constitution of the United States, and that lie cannot 



APPENDIX. 763 

be deprived of it without due process of law. If Congress has power to 
deprive him of this property on his refusal to take a test oath, the tender of 
which it will not be pretended is due process of law, it has the same power to 
deprive him of his library, his dwelling-house, chosen en aciion, and any and 
all other property he may possess, till he takes the oath, and if he can never 
take it, the confiscation of his whole property may become complete and per- 
petual, without indictment, trial by jury, or conviction of any offence what- 
ever. 

Again, if Congress has power to deprive a lawyer of his property in his 
oflBce till he takes a test oath, it has the same power to prohibit any citizen 
from following any other profession or avocation till he has done the same. 
If it had power to enact this law, it has the same power to vary, altei", or 
amend it at pleasure. If it may constitutionally do what it has done ; as the 
freedom of religion has no higher guaranty in the Constitution than the pro- 
tection of property ; it may pass a law that no one shall preach the Gospel 
till he has sworn that he believes baptism by immersion the only mode; or 
it may enact that no one shall practice medicine till he has taken an oath 
that he never did, and never will use opium in his practice ; or that no one 
shall plow till he has filed his affidavit that he will never use a turning plow, 
as the Creator placed the soil on top of the ground where it should remain ; 
or the party in power in Congress, no matter which it may be, may pi-escribe 
a test oath that no person shall ever vote again who does not make oath 
that he never voted for the other party ; and may justify it upon the ground, 
at least satisfactory to itself, that its principles are the only true principles 
of the government, and that the public good imperatively requires that they 
be carried out in practice, which might not be done without the aid of the 
oath. 

Let the judiciary sustain this assumption of power by Congress, and it 
may close the courts in the South indefinitely ; shut the doors of the churches ; 
stop every spindle of the manufacturer ; quench the fires of every furnace in 
blast; lock the doors of the merchant, and drive the plowman from his hon- 
est labor — all by the simple appliance of a test oath. 

And as nineteen-twentieths of the people of Georgia could not probably 
take it, Congress by a test oath declaring that no one shall hold property 
who cannot take it, may confiscate nineteen-twentieths of the property of 
Georgia, and indeed of the South, by the exercise of this power; for if it 
has power to forfeit the property a lawyer has in his profession by this 
means, it has as much power to confiscate any and all other property of all 
who refuse to take any test oath it may prescribe to any or all the people of 
the United States. Establish the principle that Congress can exclude all 
men from office or the practice of any profession or avocation who do not 
swear that they never bore arms against the government, and it follows that 
it may enact a law that no man shall hold office who fails to swear that he 
did bear arms in defence of the government. If the enactment of test oaths 
becomes the settled and approved policy of the government, the people of 
other sections of the Union will soon find that the Southern people are not 
the only sufferers. 

I may be told that the British Parliament centuries ago enacted test oaths, 
and that no man was allowed to hold office until he had taken the sacra- 
ments of the Church of England and the oaths of abjuration, etc. This is 
true ; and it is also true that the enlightenment of the age and the triumph of 
reason have long since swept these oaths from the statute book, and the Jew 
and the dissenter sit to-day by the side of the churchman in the Parliament 
of the realm. 

But it does not follow from this historical fact that Congress now has or 



764 APPENDIX. 

ever did possess any such powers. The Parliament of Great Britain has 
established a particular church. Has the Congress of the United States any 
such power? Parliament has established an aristocracy, and provided for 
the grant, by the King, of titles of nobility. Can Congress do the same? 
Certainly not. Why not? Because there is a written constitution in this 
country which expressly forbids it. There was none in England. Such is 
the omnipotence of the Parliament of Great Britain that, with the consent of 
the King, it may change what they call the constitution at pleasure. The 
Congress of the United States with the President has no such power. The 
Parliament of Great Britain has power to confiscate the property of the sub- 
ject beyond the period of his life, and either with or without the use of test 
oaths, if it should so will to deprive a subject of his property without due 
process of law. The written Constitution of the United States, which it has 
no power to change, denies to Congress the power to do either. From the 
difference in the powers possessed by Parliament and by Congress, the Court 
will readily perceive the reason why the British test oaths can, as precedents, 
be of no avail to the advocates of similar oaths in this country. 

I wish also to invite the attention of your Honor to this view of this ques- 
tion. I have already shown that the Congress of the United States has, by 
statute, authorized parties in the courts to manage their causes by the assist- 
ance of such counsel or attorneys-at-law as by the rules of said Courts re- 
spectively shall be permitted to manage or conduct cases therein, and that the 
Constitution guaranties to the accused the assistance of counsel for his 
defence. Now, I deny that Congress has the power after a party has employed 
an attorney under this act and confided to him the management of his cause, 
to deprive him of his assistance when the attorney has been convicted of 
neither malpractice, crime nor misdemeanor. 

1 will now proceed to show that this enactment is obnoxious to another 
grave constitutional objection. The Constitution of the United States de- 
clares that no bill of attainder, or ex post facto law shall be passed. 

By a bill of attainder T understand a judicial sentence by Parliament, or a 
legislative usurpation of judicial power. As when the Parliament passed a 
bill to attaint A. B. of high treason, and directed his execution and the con- 
fiscation of his estate. This act of Congress is in the nature of a bill of 
attainder. It does not attaint a lawyer of high treason, but it does assume 
judicial functions, and confiscates his property without judicial trial or judg- 
ment. And it usurps the power which properly belongs to the Courts alone, 
of determining who shall and who shall not fill the office, which is insepara- 
bly incident to the Court. This objection embraces the case of the applicant 
for admission to the bar as fully as that of the member of the bar. The 
Court prescribes a rule upon conformity to which any citizen has a right to 
be admitted to the bar. It belongs to the Court to fill this incident office, 
and Congress has no right to interfere, while he who complies with the rule 
of the Court has an unquestionable right to be admitted to practice. The 
student expends his money and time in preparation, and when ready to com- 
ply with the rule of court he applies for admission and is met by a quasi bill 
of attainder in the nature of a judicial sentence passed by Congress, that he 
shall not be admitted on complying with the rule of court, but that itkis the 
judgment of Congress that he must also take a certain test oath not required 
by the Courts, before he can be admitted, and that on refusal to take it he 
Btaad convicted of aiding and abetting rebellion. If Congress may exclude 
all applicants for admission till they take the test oath, it may so shape the 
oath that no man ever can take it, and it may thus create a monopoly in the 
office of attorney in the hands of the few now at the bar who can take the 
oath, and at their death destroy the office altogether, notwithstanding the 



APPENDIX. 765 

constitutional guaranty, that every person accused of a criminal offence 
shall have the assistance of counsel for his defence. 

This law is not only in the nature of a bill of attainder, which is forbidden 
by the Constitution, but it is clearly an ex post, facto law as well, when ap- 
plied to attorneys of the Court, or to applicants for admission to practice. 
An ex post facto law is thus defined by Mr. Justice Chase, delivering the 
opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Calder and 
wife vs. Bull and wife, 3d Dallas, 386. 

"1. P>ery law that makes an action, done before the passing of the laws 
and which was innocent when done, ci'iininal, and punishes such action. 

" 2. Every law that aggravates a crime or makes it greater than it was when 
committed. 

"3. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a. greater punishment 
than the law annexed to the crime when committed. 

"4. Every law that alters the legal rule?, of evidence and receives less or 
different testimony than the law required at the time of the commission of 
the offence in order to convict the. offenders." See also 1 Kent's Com., 408, 
Sergeant on Const. Law, 356; Smith's Com. on Const. Construction, 372. 

In Fletcher vs! Peck 6, Crauch Reps., 138, Chief Justice Marshall, deliver- 
ing tliS opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, says: "An ex 
post facto law is one which renders an act punishable in a manner in which it 
was not punishable when it was committed. Such a law may inflict penal- 
ties on the person, or may inflict pecuniary penalties which swell the public 
treasury. The Legislature is prohibited from passing a law by which a 
man's estate or any part of it, shall be seized for a crime which was not 
declared by some previous law to render him liable to that punisliment." 

In the case of lioss (2 Pick., 169) it was held that if a statute add a new 
punishment or increase the old one, for an offence committed before its pas- 
sage, such an act would be ex post facto. The party ought to know, says the 
court, at the time of committing the offence the whole extent of the punish- 
ment. 

iSI"ow I beg the court to bear in mind that the act applying the test oath 
to attorneys-at-law was passed on the 24th of January, 1865 — very near the 
end of the struggle. It fixes no period of time, as that he has not aided the 
rebellion since the date of the act, but it is general. The language is, " That 
I have never voluntarily borne arms," etc., embracing the whole period of his 
life. Now suppose the lawyer, or the applicant for admission, did bear arms 
against the government, or did aid or countenance those who did in 1861, 
is not this an ex post facto law as to him ? Was the forfeiture of his prop- 
erty in his office, or of his right of being admitted to the office on complying 
with the rules prescribed by the court, any part of the penalty enacted by 
Congress against the offence, at or before the time of its commission? It 
certainly was not. It formed no part of the penalty till the 24th of January, 
1865. This, then, is a law that repeals no part of the penalty prescribed by 
law against the offence in 1861 ; it only adds to the penalty already in existence 
the forfeiture of his right to practice law in the courts of the United States, or, 
in the language of Mr. Justice Chase, it inflicts a greater punishment than the 
law annexed to the crime when committed. In addition to the old penalty, it 
seizes and forfeits his estate m his office, which could not be done, because 
no previous law, in the language of Chief Justice Marshal], " rendered him 
liable to that punishment." And in the language of the Supreme Court of 
Massachusetts, in Ross' case, above cited, if it does not increase the old, it 
" adds a. neto punishment" for an ofience committed before its passage. 
How could the attorney, at the time of committing the offence in 1861, 
know, in the language of the last named court, the whole extent of the 



766 APPENDIX. 

punishment which was not prescribed till January, 1865 ? It is also ex post 
facto when tested by the fourth rule laid down by Mr. Justice Chase. It 
changes the legal rule of evidence and receives less and different testimony 
than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, to con- 
vict the offender; in this that it makes his bare refusal to answer on oath, 
whether he has or has not committed the offence, conclusive evidence of his 
guilt, and is in effect a judgment of forfeiture. 

It may be contended here as it has been elsewhere, that this test oath is 
nob a penalty, nor the act imposing it a penal statute, but that it is an addi- 
tional qualijication for office prescribed by Congress. It is not necessary that 
I discuss here the power of Congress to prescribe other qualifications than 
those prescribed in the Constitution for its own members, or any other 
officer of the United States. I presume there are few advocates of the position 
that Congress has power to prescribe the qualifications of any but officers of 
the United States. What power has Congress to prescribe the qualifications 
of the Governor of a State, a member of the State Legislature, or a Judge 
of a State court? It certainly has none, though they are all citizens of the 
United States, and all officers. An attorney-at-law is an officer of court but 
not an officer of the United States. He is admitted by the court, under 
rules prescribed by it, to practice in the court, and is answerable alone to the 
court. 

This is the construction given to it by Congress itself. The act of July, 
1862, prescribed the test oath for all officers of the United States. That of 
January, 1865, declares that attorneys-at-law shall take the same oath 
before they are permitted to practice in the United States courts. If Con- 
gress had considered them officers of the United States they were fully em- 
braced in the Act of July, 1862, and it was an idle waste of time to pass the 
Act of January, 1865. It is very clear then that the test oath is not pre- 
scribed as an additional qualification for an officer. The oath was intended 
as a penalty, and the statute as a penal one, against those who aided in the 
war against the United States. It was not intended to qualify the lawyers 
of this bar for the practice. It was intended to forfeit their right to practice. 

In support of the position that a statute prescribing a test oath, which 
deprives a citizen of his right to hold office is a penal one, 1 refer your Honor 
to the case of Leigh, 1 Munford's Va. Reps.; and the case of Dorsey, 7 Por- 
ter's Ala. Keps. Each of these States had passed stringent acts against 
duelling, and had prescribed an oath to be taken in Virginia by all officers of 
the State Government ; and in Alabama by all State officers and practicing 
attorneys, that each had not befoi-e engaged in a duel and would never en- 
gage in one, while he remained in the office. In each case the applicant 
moved to be admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court without taking the 
oath; and in each case the court sustained the motion. The decisions are 
lengthy, but as they are very able I shall not apologize for reading portions 
of each to your Honor. And upon the point to which I last referred : I in- 
vite the attention of the coin-t especially to the following language of the 
. judges : In Leigh's case, page 482, Judge Roane who was greatly distin- 
guished for his ability, says : " However laudable the object of the act to 
suppress duelling may be, it is still a highly penal law and must be construed 
strictly. It is unusually penal if not tyrannical, in compelling a person to 
stipulate upon oath, by the 3d section, not only in relation to his past 
conduct and present resolution, but also for the future state of his mind. Thus 
premising that this act is highly and unusually penal, I will, under the influ- 
ence of the rules for construing penal statutes, preceed to apply it to the 
case before us." 

Judge Fleming in the same case says : " The act under consideration 



APPENDIX. 767 

being a compulsory law (however salutary it may be), imposing on the 
officers of the Government an oath unknown to the former law of the State, 
or of the United States ; though there be no pecuniary penally inflicted on 
those who refuse to take the oath therein prescribed ; I cannot but consider 
it as a penal statute, and as such must give it a strict interpretation." Again 
he says : " Admitting that attorneys are comprehended in the act, it has or 
ought to have a prospective and not retrospective operation, and cannot affect 
officers of any description appointed to office prior to the passage of the act." In 
Dorsey's case, 7 Porter, 366, Judge Goldthwaite says : " I have omitted any 
argument to show that disqualification from office or fi'om the pursuit of a law- 
ful avocation is a punishment — that it is so is too evident to require any illus- 
tration ; indeed it may be questioned whether any ingenuity could devise 
any penalty which would operate more forcibly on society." Again he says : 
" A citizen is informed that by the laws of the State, he is entitled to aspire 
to any office or pursue any other avocation which any other citizen can. — 
Yet when he is about to enter in the office or avocation, he is required to 
swear to his innocence of a particular crime; it then becomes evident that 
if he cannot truly take the oath required, he is excluded. Can it be 
doubted that for all the purposes of the disqualification the guilt of the individ- 
ual is ascertained? in what does it differ from the general enactment that a 
candidate for office shall be required to prove and establish his innocence of 
a specified crime ? Admitting a person to be guilty, he is neither accused, tried 
or convicted by any tribunal known to the laws, yet he is punished with unerr- 
ing certainty, and tlie utmost celerity; his conscience is made his sole ac- 
cuser and judge; his punishment commences with the commission of 
the crime, and terminates only when he ceases to exist ; he is excluded from 
the sympathy of his peers — no legal doubt can intervene to produce his 
acquittal — an error of his judgment involves his soul in the awful guilt of 
perjury, or punishes him without guilt. I have no hesitation in declaring 
that this act provides a mode of ascertaining and punishing guilt which is 
not only unwarranted by the Constitution, but is also in direct contravention 
of several of the most important provisions of the declaration of rights, by 
which the liberties and privileges of the citizens are guarded. * * 
When once it is admitted or proved that a citizen has a right to aspire to 
office or to pursue any lawful avocation, it seems to me impossible that he 
can be legally deprived of that right by a punishment for an offence com- 
mitted without a trial by jury ; and I can perceive no sound distinction 
between a law which deprives one of his right without a trial, and that 
which ascertains and punishes his guilt by an illegal mode of trial," He then 
refers to the Governor's right to grant pardons, and says : " We cannot pre- 
sume that the General Assembly intended by this act to interfere with the 
constitutional prerogative of mercy vested in the Executive, yet this act, if 
constitutional, imposes a penally which cannot be remitted, and inflicts a 
puaishment beyond the reach of Executive clemency." 

In the same case. Judge Osmond says, page 379 : 

" This is a highly penal law ; it excludes, unless its terms are complied with, 
all persons from practicing as attorneys and counsellors at law in the courts 
of this State. It must, therefore, receive a strict construction, in accordance 
with well established principles, and the authority to pass it be clearly and 
fairly discoverable from the Constitution." And on page 38 : " It is so offensive 
to the first principles of justice to require a man to give evidence against 
himself in a penal case, that independent of the constitutional interdict, no 
one in this enlightened age will be found to advocate the principle." But it 
may be said this is not a case of this kind, as no corporal or pecuniary pun- 
ishment is the consequence of a refusal to take the oath against duelling. 



768 APPENDIX. 

But are not the results the same, whether punishment follows from the ad- 
mission, or is imposed as a consequence of silence V Can ingenuity make a 
distinction between a punishment inflicted in this mode, as a consequence 
of a refusal to take the oath, by closing one of the avenues to wealth and 
fame, and a positive pecuniary mulct? If there is a difference, I think it 
entirely in favor of the latter, so far as the amount or weight of the penalty 
could effect the decision of the case. On page 381 : " With great deference 
to the opinion of others who may differ from me, I think that the requisition by 
the Legislature, in substance and effect, requires the applicant for a license 
to give evidence against himself, and that, if not within the letter, is at least 
within the words of the prohibition — the very foundation of which is that 
every one is presumed to be innocent till the contrary appears." 

He then refers to the constitutional provision that the crime or offence 
must be ascertained by due course of law, and says : The term " due course 
of law " has a settled and ascertained meaning, and was intended to protect 
people against privations of their lives, liberty, or property, in any other 
mode than through the intervention of the judicial tribunals of the coun- 
try. But the law seeks to ascertain a fact exalted into a crime and 
punished in a particular manner — not by the judgment of a competent 
coui't, but by the admission of the offender, and construing his silence as 
evidence of guilt. 

In a case of Greene vs. Biggs, 1 Curtis, Circuit Court, Reps. 325, Judge 
Custisof the Supreme Court of the United States, presiding in the Circuit 
Court, defines what is meant by the law of the land. He says : ■' Certainly this 
does not mean any act which the Assembly may choose to pass. If it did the 
legislative will could inflict a forfeiture of life, liber ty,or property, without a trial.. 
The exposition of the words as they stand in Magna Charta, as well as in the 
American Constitution, has been that they require ' due process of law,' and in 
this is necessarily implied and included the right to answer to and contest, 
the charge ; and the consequent right to be discharged from it, unless it is 
pi-oved." Lord Coke, in giving an interpretation of these words in Magna 
Charta, 2 Inst. 50, 51, says they mean," due process of law," in which is included 
presentment or indictment, and being brought in to answer thereto. And the 
jurists of our country have not relaxed this interpretation. "It follows," says 
he, speaking of the case before him, " that a law which would preclude the 
accused from answering to and contesting the charge, * * * * and 
which should condemn him to fine and forfeiture unheard, if he failed to com- 
ply with the i-equisition (to give security) would deprive him of his liberty 
or property — not by the law of the land, but by an arbitrary and uncon- 
stitutional exertion of legislative power." 

Judge Pitman, in the same case, refers to the fact that the statute under 
consideration rendered any one engaged in selling spirituous liquors an in- 
competent juroi% and authorized the question to be propounded to him, and 
says : 

" This law authorizes the court to inquire of the juror who may be chal- 
lenged on this account ; it is true, the law says ' he may decline to answer,' 
but what then ? Is the fact to be proved by other evidence ? No ; this 
silence is considered as sufficient proof, and he is excluded accordingly. He 
is, therefore, compelled to answer, if he does not wish to be excluded as 
vTUWorthy to sit as a juror, or does not wish to be considered as concerned 
in a traffic which may be considered as infamous. The maxim of the com- 
mon law recognized by the Constitution is that every man is presumed to 
be innocent until he is proved to be guilty. The whole spirit of this law 
appears to me to be at variance with the rights of property as well as person. 
The Legislature has no right by an act to confiscate the property of the citi- 



APPENDIX. 769 

zen ; it may be forfeited for a violation of law, but this must be done with- 
out affectiugthe rights of the owner thereof to a jury trial." 

I beg the pardon of the Court for having taken up so much time reading 
authorities, but as they are in point, and are the opinions of able judges, 
and as the question is an important one, I have relied upon the indul- 
gence of the Court. These authorities establish the points I have taken 
against this law, to my miad, beyond all question : 

1. That the attorney is an officer of Court ; that he has a property in that 
office ; and that it is for life or good behavior. 

2. That this act of Congress violates the social compact. Magna Charta, 
and the Constitution of the United States, by depriving him of that property 
without due process of law, in this, that he is in effect convicted, and his 
property forfeited without presentment or indictment of a grand jury; that 
lie is denied a trial by jury ; that he is denied the right to be confronted with 
the witnesses against him; that he is denied compulsory process for obtain- 
ing witnesses in his favor ; that he is denied the assistance of counsel for his 
defence ; and that he is compelled to be a witness against himself in a crim- 
inal case, or that his silence is construed as conclusive evidence of guilt. 

3. That the act is in the nature of a bill of attainder, and is an usurpa- 
tion by the legislative department of the Government of the functions as- 
signed by the Constitution to the judicial department, being a sentence of 
forfeiture, pronounced by Congress, which being a judicial and not a legisla- 
tive act, can only be done by the judiciary after trial and conviction. 

4. That the law is not and was not intended to be a law prescribing 
qualifications for office, but a penal law forfeiting his property for the com- 
mission of an act, which at the time of its commission had no such penalty 
annexed by law, and that the act or offence is punished by this law in a 
manner different from that prescribed by law, at the time of its commission ; 
and that the law is for this reason ex post facto and void. 

But suppose the doctrine to have been fully established that Congress has 
power to forfeit the property which an attorney has in his office, for having 
borne arms against the Government, or countenanced those who did, and 
that it may use test oaths for the purpose of ascertaining who is and who 
is not guilty, compelling each to suffer the penalty of guilt if he refuses to 
answer — in other words, drawing contrary to all rule in such case a conclu- 
sive inference of guilt from a refusal to answer, and pronouncing and ex- 
ecuting judgment accordingly. How does the case then stand V The office 
of the attorney would be forfeited so soon as the court met and tendered the 
oath and he refused to take it. But certainly not till then. Why not? Be- 
cause Congress makes the refusal to take the oath conclusive evidence of guilt ; 
or rather it forfeits his estate because he is guiltj'^, and makes the refusal to 
take the oath stand in the place of trial by jury, and a judgment of guilty 
rendered by the court. Just as if the Legislature of Georgia should pass an 
act (no matter how absurd) that when a man is found dead in any county, 
every man, woman and child in the county, who refuses to swear that he 
or she was not a party to his death, shall be taken by the sheriff and hanged, 
and all his or her property shall be confiscated. 

But now suppose before the oath is tendered to any, or any one is executed, 
the pardoning power should grant a full and free pardon to every person in the 
county, could the sheriff after the pardon with knowledge of its existence, pro- 
ceed to hang any one, or to seize the property of any one as forfeited ? All 
must admit that he could not. The pardon having been granted before judg- 
ment or execution, it leaves the accused in precisely the same condition in 
which they stood before the charge was made against them ; not only with the 
right to life and liberty, but to the peaceable enjoyment of all their jDroperty. 
49 



770 APPENDIX. 

Now the truth is, that most of the attoi'neys of this court have received, 
either under the General Amnesty Proclamation of the President, or upon 
special application, full pardon from the President of the United States, 
before any court has been held in the State, or the test oath has been ten- 
dered to, or refused to be taken by, any one. Admit, then, that the refusal to 
take the test oath stands in place of a conviction of guilt, and it can have 
no application to any one pardoned before trial or conviction. It certainly 
follows, then, that the property of an attorney in his office which was not 
forfeited prior to his pardon, cannot now be forfeited for the offence for 
which he was pardoned. In support of this position I quote the following 
authorities : 

" It seems agreed that a pardon of treason or felony even after an attainder, 
so far clears the party from the infamy and all other consequences thereof, 
that he may have an action against any one who afterwards calls him -traitor 
or felon ; for the pardon makes him as it were a new man." [7 Bacon's Abr., 
416.] 

The Court will please note the language that the pardon, even after an 
attainder, clears the party from the infamy, and all other consequences thereof.. 
A much stronger case than the one now at Bar, unless the act of Congress 
imposing this test oath is held by the court to be a bill of attainder, and if so 
it is unconstitutional and void. But if the act is not a bill of attainder the 
pardon granted before conviction or attainder must necessarily leave the 
party in the precise legal status which he occupied prior to the commission 
of the offence. 

It was formerly doubted whether the pardon could do more than take away 
the punishment, leaving the crime and its disabling consequences unremoved. 
But it is now settled that a pardon, whether by the King or by act of Parlia- 
ment, removes not only the punishment, hat all the legal disabilities consequent 
on the crime. [7 Bacon's Abr., 41-5 ; 2 Ptussell on Crimes, 975 ; Hob., 681 ; 2 
Hal.'s P. C, 272; 2 Salk., 690; 1 Lord Raym., 89; 4 State Trials, 681; Cas. 
Tenp. Holt, 683; 5 State Trials, 171; Fitzg., 167.] 

The effect of such pardon by the King is to make the offender a new man, 
to acquit hira of all corpore,al penalties and forfeitures annexed to that offence 
for which he obtains his pardon. [4 Blackstone's Com., 402.] 

I might add other authorities, but deem it unnecessary. Those already 
quoted establish the position beyond controversy, that the effect of the par- 
don is to acquit the offender of allpejialties a.ndfo7feitures annexed to the offence. 
It follows conclusively that the attorney or applicant for admission to the 
bar who has received a pardon, before indictment or conviction, stands 
before this court in precisely the condition in which he would have stood, 
and with all the rights which he would have had, if he had never committed 
the offence. To hold that Congress can change this, is to hold that Con- 
gress has power to destroy the pardoning power vested by the Constitution 
in the President of the United States alone. 

I trust I might safely rest this case here, but before I take my seat I de- 
sire to make a few remarks on the law of nations as to the relative rights 
and duties of those who were lately at war with each other. 

Upon this subject I call your attention to the language of Vattel in his 
Law of Nations in his chapter upon Civil War. He says : 

"And if there existed no reason to justify the insurrection (a circum- 
stance which perhaps never happens), even in such case it becomes necessary, 
as we have above observed, to grant an amnesty, when the offender's are 
numerous. When the amnesty is once published and accepted, all the past 
must be buried in oblivion; nor must any one be called to account for what 
has been done during the disturbance. And in general, the sovereign whose 



APPENDIX. 771 



word ought ever to be sacred, is bound to the faithful observance of every 
promise he has made, even to rebels," [Vattel's Law of Nations, pp. 423 and 
424.] 

The terms pf capitulation have not only been agreed upon in this case, 
but the Civil War is at an end. The vanquished have in good faith com- 
plied with those terms on their part. The Northern construction of the Consti- 
tution is established, and slavery is forever abolished. The amnesty has 
been published and accepted. Then, in the language of this distinguished 
author, the " past should be buried in oblivion," and neither Judge Law nor 
any one else shoiild be called to account here or elsewhere, by test oath or 
othervvfise, for what was done by him in accordance with the usages of civil- 
ized warfare, "during the disturbance." 

This view of this question has also the sanction and authority of Divine 
Inspiration. In the Bible the distinction between the blood of war and the 
blood shed in peace, is clearly drawn — the binding obligation to carry out 
in good faith an amnesty once tendered and accepted is enforced — and the 
infliction of punishment upon the party who has received the pardon or 
amnesty for acts done during the war, is condemned. 

After the death of Saul, King of Israel, war existed between his son as his 
heir, and David, the anointed of God, about the succession to the throne, 
Abner commanded the forces of the son of Saul, and Joab those of David. 
A battle was fought, in which Joab was victorious. While Abner was re- 
treating, he was followed by Asahel, the brother of Joab, who, after having 
been warned to desist from the pursuit which he refused to do, was slain by 
Abner. After this Abner sought an interview with King David, received 
amnesty, and was sent away in peace. 

On learning this Joab was greatly displeased, and without the knowledge 
of the King sent and brought him back and slew him because he had slain 
his brother in battle. In other words, Joab slew Abner after he had made 
peace with the King, because of an act done during the war. 

At a later period in King David's life, his son Absalom rebelled against 
him, and drove him from his throne, and without just cause plunged Israel 
into civil war. Absalom made Ama:?a the leader of his forces, and the forces 
of King David M'ere led by Joab. Before the battle commenced, King 
David gave strict orders to Joab, that neither he nor any of his men should 
harm the person of Absalom. During the battle Absalom became entangled 
by his hair in the boughs of a tree, where Joab found him and slew him, in 
violation of the King's orders, though peace had neither been made, nor had 
Absalom been pardoned, nor did the act violate any of the then usages of 
war. King David wept bitterly over the death of his rebellious son. After- 
wards Amasa who commanded the armies of Absalom during the war was 
pardoned by the King, and placed in command of his forces in an expedition 
against Sheba, who had raised an insurrection. Joab met Amasa on the 
march, and smote and slew him. 

King David was a man inspired of God, and is said to have been a man 
after God's own heart. He was a warrior most of his life ; and understood 
both the rules of war, and the Divine will upon the subject. Finally he lay 
upon his death-bed on the brink of the grave and the verge of eternity. In 
this solemn hour with full knowledge of his condition, filled with the spirit 
of inspiration, he gave his memorable charge to Solomon, his son, who was 
to succeed him upon his throne. In that charge among other things he 
commanded him to slay Joab, or in other words not to let his hoary head go 
down to the grave in peace. Not because he slew Absalom, the King's son, 
in violation to the King's order. The blood of AI)salom was shed in battle ; 



772 APPENDIX. 

it was therefore the blood of war ; and much as it grieved the King's hearty 
he remembered it not upon his death-bed, against Joab as a crime. But Joab 
had slain Abner and Amasa after the war, in each case, was at an end and 
they had made peace with the King. For their slaughter David ordered Sol- 
omon, his son, to take the hfe of Joab. Why? In David's,^ wn languaj^e, 
because he shed "the blood of war in peace." This sliowed the obligation 
which in the estimation of this inspired man rested upon the victor, after 
he had made peace and extended amnesty, to protect the rights of the van- 
quished and to maintain the utmost good faith in carrying out the terms 
of the capitulation. The fact that Abner had slain Joab's brother in battle 
was held to be no justification for the slaughter of Abner by Joab after the war 
was at an end. The slaughter of Asahel was the shedding of the blood of 
war. The slaughter of Abner was the shedding of the blood of war in peace. 
The first was justifiable homicide, the second was murder. 

In conclusion, I have only to add that I have satisfied my own mind, and 
I trust the mind of the Court, that the statute requiring the test oath is in 
violation of the Constitution of the United States, and is for that reason 
void. And that the Divine law and the laws of nations agree, that when 
war is at an end, and peace is proclaimed or amnesty and pardon granted to 
the vanquished, as to the applicant in this case, all the past mvsl he buried in 
oblivion, and no one should be called to account for what was done " during 
its continuance." And that he who forfeits the property of those who have 
made peace, for acts done during hostilities, violates the law of nations ; 
while he who sheds the blood of those who have conformed to the terms of 
the capitulation after hostilities have ended, " sheds the blood of war in 
peace," and violates not only the law of nations, but the law revealed by 
the living God. 



Atlanta Constitution, Wednesday, July 7, 1880. 

Our Country. — Speech of Hon. Joseph E. Brown, Delivered on the 
Third of July, 1880, at the City Hall in Atlanta, Ga., on Con- 
stitutional Eights, National Issues and the Duties of the 
Hour. 

The citizens of Atlanta, celebrating the 4th of July on Saturday, the 3d, 
assembled in large numbers at the city hall. And at 3 o'clock Capt. John 
Milledge read the Declaration of Independence. After which Senator 
Brown, being present by invitation, spoke as follows : 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been invited here by the committee of 
arrano-ements to discuss, as the invitation says, " the national issues of the 
present presidential campaign." Of course on an occasion of this character 
it is not expected that I will discuss those issues in a partisan manner, or 
that there will be any vituperation or abuse of any one in my address. The 
object of the committee doubtless was that I should refer to the great princi- 
ples of our grand constitutional system, and should point out such course as 
in my opinion will best promote the future happiness and welfare of the 
American people. 

I shall not go, as is usual in a Fourth of July speech, into a history of the 
colonies, or the causes that produced the rupture which separated us from 
Great Britain. That the colonies had sufficient cause to justify their course 
no American now doubts, and I believe no Englishman will deny. Suffice 
it to say, however, that this grand declaration which my friend has just read 



APPENDIX. 773 

in your presence was a masterly presentation of the great principles upon 
which the war was begun, which lasted for seven years and ended in the 
complete overthrow of British dominion in this country and the establish- 
ment of a free and independent government of free and independent States. 

'After a short period the bond of union between these States, called the 
Ai'ticles of Confederation, was found to be insufficient to meet the emergencies 
of the times and foster the great interests of the country, because they did 
not give to the central government power to carry out the objects necessary 
in our complex system. 

A convention was called, therefore, for the purpose of amending those 
articles. After mature deliberation, they concluded to recommend to the 
States of the Union a new constitution — the present Constitution of the 
United States, without the amendments. That Constitution was submitted 
for ratification to the respective States, and, after certain delays and reserva- 
tions that I need not now recite, it was ratified by all the thirteen original 
States. That Constitution became, therefore, the sheet-anchor and founda- 
tion of a great system of constitutional government like no other known to 
the world. It was an experiment hazardous at the time ; and the general 
prediction of the crowned heads of Europe was that we could not live under 
such a system, and that it would soon topple to the ground. 

The object of our fathers was to have a confederation, or a union of the 
thirteen original States, and of all other States that might afterwards be ad- 
mitted into that union, with power to do all that was necessary by a general 
government for the defence and general welfare, and to preserve to each 
State individually all the necessary powers to conduct local self-government, 
and to look after and protect all the great interests of the people of each 
State. That design was very happily carried out in the Constitution brought 
forth as the result of the labors of that convention. 

That Constitution confers certain great powers upon Congress that were 
necessary for the general government which had to take charge of the exter- 
nal affairs of a great people, as well as such internal affairs as could not be 
managed by each State individually. I will call attention to a few of those 
powers. Power is given by the Constitution to Congress to regulate com- 
merce with foreign nations among the several States and with the Indian 
tribes. 

To establish an uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws on the 
subject of bankruptcies, etc. 

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foi'eign coins, and to fix 
the standard of weights and measures. 

To establish post-offices and post roads. 

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, 
and offences against the laws of nations. 

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, etc. 

To raise and support armies. 

To provide and maintain a navy. 

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, 
to suppress insurrections and repel invasions. 

. These were great fundamental powers delegated by the States under the 
Constitution to the general government. And when you come to look at them 
you see they are founded in wisdom. In each case it is a power that can 
only be exercised by the general government, and could not on account of 
conflicting interests be exercised by the individual States. Therefore these 
great powers were delegated by the States to the general government ; and it 
was authorized to execute them. 

Then, in order to be guarded, for our ancestors who framed this instru- 



774 APPENDIX. 

ment were great and wise men, they imposed certain restrictions upon Con- 
gress. Two or three of the principal ones were, that : The privileges of the 
writ of habeas corpus should not be suspended, unless when in case of rebel- 
lion or invasion the public safety may require it. All Englishmen ^nd all 
Americans have for centuries put the highest estimate upon ttiis great right 
for the protection of individual liberty. And the right is denied to Congress 
to suspend it, unless when in cases of insurrection or invasion the public 
safety requires its suspension. 

Then, again, it is provided that no bill of attainder or ex post facto law 
shall be passed. And no title of nobility shall be granted by the United 
States. There are also other restraints put upon the powers of the general 
government. I do not speak now of the rights or powers reserved by the 
States. But the convention in forming the Constitution conferred or dele- 
gated certain great powers to the general government. Then there are in- 
hibitions to restrain its action. 

Then corue certain restraints upon the powers of the States. In other 
words, in delegating certain powers to the general government for the gen- 
eral good and restraining the action of Congress in reference to certain other 
matters, it was found necessary to negative the power's of the States to do 
certain acts in conflict with the delegated powers. What consummate 
wisdom there was in providing these checks and balances for the govern- 
ment ! 

The Constitution provides that no State shall enter into any treaty, alli- 
ance, or confederation, grant letters of marque and reprisal, coin money, 
emit bills of credit, make anything but gold or silver coin a tender in pay- 
ment of debts, pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing 
the obligation of contracts, or gTa,nt any title of nobility. These powers are 
expressly denied to the States. Again, no State shall without the consent of 
Congress levy any duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war, in time of 
peace; enter into any agreement or contract with any other State, or with a 
foreign power ; or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such immi- 
nent danger as will not admit of delay. These are express inhibitions upon 
the power of the States. And if you look to them, you will see that while 
the convention forming the Constitution was delegating certain powers to the 
Federal Government necessary to its existence, it carefully denied the ext^rcise 
of those powers to the States. The object was to have the line between the 
powers of the two so well defined that there might be no just cause of con- 
flict. 

In summing up the general powers delegated to Congress this provision 
occurs : •' That Congress shall have power to make all laws which sliall be 
necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and 
all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the 
United States or in any department or officer thereof." Therefore the Fed- 
eral Government is limited in its sphere of action to the exercise of dele- 
gated powers and the passage of such laws as are necessary to carry into effect 
the delegated powers. There it is. There is the whole extent of power 
delegated by the States to the general government. As long as it moves 
within that sphere and the States move within the sphere reserved by them, 
there is no room for conflict, and the system works harmoniously and beauti- 
fully. 

But some of the States were not pleased with the Constitution as it came 
from the hands of the convention ; and they adopted it only with the under- 
standing that at an early period there were to be certain amendments defin- 
ing the powers of Congress more unmistakably, and making clearer the 
reserved rights of the States. 



APPEiTDIX. 775 

The ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitntion which followed as 
the result of that understanding, are as follows : The ninth amendment 
declares tbat the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not 
be .construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

Amendment ten says : " The powers not delegated to the United States 
by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the 
States respectively or to the people." 

Take the Constitution then as it came from the hands of the fathers and 
as amended at an early period, and there seemed to be no room for future 
trouble or conflict between the two governments. Each was to move within 
its sphere and, when doing so, the system was a grand, a glorious and a 
beautiful one. 

Thus established upon principles of equity and justice, and founded in the 
greatest wisdom, the system moved off harmoniously for many years. But 
the principal disturbing element was found to be slavery. On that point 
our fathers had difficulty in framing the Constitution. And in order to do 
justice to all, they were careful to incorporate into it this provision : 

" No person held to service or labor in one State, undei' the laws thereof, 
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, 
be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim 
of the party to whom such labor or service may be due." 

Without that provision in the Constitution it is well known it would never 
have been agreed to by the slave-holding States. For a long time we had no 
difficulty, but finally the anti-slavery feeling in the North grew to a point 
where certain of the Northern States positively refused to carry out that 
essential fundamental provision of the compact of union. We of the South 
felt that this was a great grievance, and we remonstrated and did all in our 
power to have that provision faithfully met and carried out. While this 
question ' was progressing in a very unsatisfactory manner, the difficulties 
about slavery in the Territories reached a point where there was great excite- 
ment ail over the Union, and we were almost in the throes of a revolution. 
At that time a sectional party was organized, and that party, with great 
strength in all the Northern States, placed a candidate in the field opposed 
to the extension of slavery in the Territories, which the South thought of the 
utmost importance. When the election of Mr. Lincoln was an accomplished 
' fact, the people of the South naturally looked about for new safeguards. 
We felt that the right of secession was an inherent right. That was our 
honest opinion. We determined after consultation among the different South- 
ern States that it was the only remedy left for the protection of slavery. It 
may have been unwise to exercise it. On that subject there were honest 
difi'erences of opinion. As it tunied out, it proved unfortunate, although if 
we had not met the issue then, we would have had to do it at a little later 
period, or our children would. Probably it w^as as well to meet it then if it 
had to come. We undertook to exercise that right: The Federal Govern- 
ment then in the hands of the Northern States made war upon us to compel 
us to return to the Union. That war was long and bloody. On both sides 
deeds of gallantry of the highest order were performed. No people ever 
fought more gallantly. It was American meeting American on the bloody 
field of battle. [Applause.] Suffice it to say, that on account of a vast su- 
periority of numbers possessed by the people of the North, and on account 
of the blockade thrown around us, after a grand and gallant struggle, we 
were forced to surrender. 

Then came one of the difficult periods in the history of the government ; 
the reconstruction period. After we surrendered the great trouble was to 
determine what was our status — whether we were in the Union or out of the 



776 



APPENDIX. 



Union. We had been told all the time of the contest that our ordinances of 
secession were nullities ; that we were still in the Union. At the end of the 
struggle, when we sent back our senators and representatives to take seats 
within the halls of Congress, we found we were still out of the Union. It is 
not for us to explain the inconsistencies of the government on that point. 
Suffice it to say that those having the power then, as our conquerors, dictated 
terms we of the South thought and still think exceedingly hard. We 
differed among onrselves about the best means of meeting the emergency. 
Some of us thought we saw no chance but to acquiesce in the dictation of 
the conqueror. If we could not succeed when we had 500,000 of the gallant 
sons of the South in the field, armed and ready for battle, how were we to 
resist further, when we had surrendered our armies and they stood with 
l,2o0,000 bayonets over us? Others thought at the time we might get rid of 
these measures by means of the Democratic party. We differed and differed, 
I may say, in an angry spirit sometimes, but honestly on both sides. We 
went through a hard period. I will not now attempt to enumerate all the 
hardships of the reconstruction measures. Neither my strength nor your 
patience would permit it. I need only say that we were finally obliged to 
come to the point of acquiescing in all the reconstruction acts of Congress 
and of adopting the three constitutional amendments, tiie 13th, 14th and 
15th, as dictated by our conquerors. To-day, whatever may have been our 
differences of opinion in the past, we are a unit on that point ; we have all 
acquiesced. ^Ye have adopted the three amendments to the Constitution as 
part of the reconstruction measures, and all of us who have held oiEce since 
that time have sworn to support them. 

We have even gone so tar, in our national Democratic platform at St. 
Louis in 1876, as to declare that we renew our devotion to the Constitution 
with the amendments. I confess, fellow-citizens, I had never felt devoted to 
them ; but I took them as part of the reconstruction acts. I agreed in good 
faith to adopt them, and I intend in all good faith to carry them out [Ap- 
plause.] as earnestly and honestly as if they had met my cordial approval. 
[Applause.] The reconstruction acts have been enforced. We are now 
acknowledged to be back in the Union. 

Now the question naturally comes up, as to our future, what is best for us 
to do. Leaving behind us all these hardships, and they were great hard- 
ships, burying in a common grave all our past differences, let us come 
together, attribute to each other none but proper motives, and move forward 
in a common cause to a common destiny ; not only us of the South, but let 
us extend a hand to oitr brethren of the North, and remember that while we 
were enemies in war, we are brethren in peace. Let us clasp hands with 
them across the bloody chasm and bury the bloody shirt beyond the reach of 
resurrection. [Applause.] 

It can do us no good to enter into any contentions about the past. Who was 
right and who was wrong is not the question. None of us, I apprehend, now 
desire any sort of triumph over any other patriot on account of any differ- 
ences, or on account of any results. What can we best do in future to make 
the South prosperous and liapi)y? And what can we best do, not only for 
the South, but lor the whole Union? 

One of tlie results of this great struggle tliat I have referred to was the 
abolition of slavery. Yes, it is abolished — forever abolished. It must for- 
ever remain so. Another result was to settle forever the question of the right 
of secession. We formerly had that right. I have no doubt of it. [Ap- 
plause.] It was an inherent right. But when we undertook to exercise it, the 
Government of the United States denied the right and made war upon us, 
and we were obliged to go into that struggle and accept the issue, with the 



APPENDIX. 777 

knowledge that if we failed and our armies were conquered the right was 
forever lost. [Applause.] That was the necessary result, and it is lost, and 
we all accept the arbitrament of the sword. Let us proclaim it North and 
South, in future, that we will never again attempt to exercise the right of 
secession. [Applause.] Every State formerly had the right ; no one has it 
now. War always settles something, and it has settled that question, and 
settled it forever. 

But, while that is true, it has not settled that we have lost all our states 
rights, or all our constitutional rights. And my reference to certain provisions 
of the Constitution was with a view to this connection. What have we lost 
by the war ? We have lost property and lives ; but I am speaking now of 
the principles of government. We have lost slavery with the right of seces- 
sion. And we lost out of the system whatever rights were surrendered in 
the 13tli, 14th and 15th amendments. [Applause.] As far as they have 
modified the original Constitution, we are bound to conform to them and we 
must, as good citizens, in good faith, carry them out, whether we were 
devoted to them or not. Patriotism and honor require that. Every princi- 
ple of good faith requires it, and we cannot afford to do otherwise. But 
neither the States of the South, nor the States of the North have lost any 
more of their rights. All the rights of the States that were reserved under 
the Constitution, except those enumerated, are still reserved, and we still 
possess them, in all their original vigor, just as we did when the Constitution 
came from the hands of our fathers. [Applause.] 

And allow me to tell you that we are not singular in claiming this. The 
people of New England are as little inclined to give up these rights as we 
are. The Constitution of Massachusetts to-day is probably as good a states 
rights Constitution as any in this Union. Clay, Webster and Jackson held 
one construction of the Constitution. Calhoun, that great luminary of the 
South, and Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, held 
another. Each school had its adherents. As the result of the war, the 
Jeffersonian and Calhoun platform has been modified, and we have lost the 
right of secession and the rights yielded under the three amendments. We 
have lost no more. We stand, therefore, with all the rights in the Union that 
were claimed by Clay, Jackson and Webster ; and if we are true to ourselves, 
we will not yield them, and no section will require us to yield them. This 
is not a sectional question now. Bear you in mind that New England stood 
as firmly by them under Webster's interpretation as the South did. With 
the modifications mentioned, therefore, the States stand to-day with all their 
reserved rights. Now that the slavery question is out of the way, and their 
rights are understood, I see no reason why we may not move forward in a 
grand and glorious progress to wealth, to power and to greatness. That is 
certainly the earnest wish of the people of all sections of the Union. Let us 
then bury sectional strife. Why should the people of Georgia longer be the 
enemies of the people of Massachusetts ? or why are the people of South 
Carolina the enemies of the people of Illinois ? There is no reason for it. 
It must not be so. If it is, we cannot prosper. We can only prosper when 
we all stand by our constitutional rights and practice them in future. 

And now a few words in reference to the presidential contest. I was re- 
quested to say something about the issues involved there. It is a matter of 
the greatest possible importance to all of us that we preserve constitutional 
government with all the rights that we now have. For the last twenty years 
the government has been in the hands of the Republican party. And I do not 
say that they are more corrupt than any other party that has had power that 
long. But no party should be trusted with power for a longer period than 
that in a free government, without change. Corruption and abuses will creep 



778 APPENDIX. 

in ■when there is a long reign of power and no other party comes in to over- 
haul what has been done or to put checks upon it. 

It was natural, my fellow-citizens, at the end of the war, as the Republi- 
can party had been the great war party, and had been triumphantly the suc- 
cessful party, that they should hold the reins of government for a number 
of years to come. I would have read history in vain had I not learned that 
that was to be the result. I foresaw it at the time of the surrender. We 
could but expect them to control the government for a long time. They have 
held uninterrupted power till extravagances and corruptions have crept in, 
as they might have done had the democracy been twenty years in power. 
And I think it is the interest of the whole people of the United States tO' 
have a change. We should have an overhauling once in a while. And now 
I think is the time for it. [Applause.] 

I have already said that a new element has been introduced into the body 
politic. The slaves were not only set free and slavery forever abolished, but 
as part of the reconstruction measures, those who were formerly slaves were 
made our fellow-citizens and placed by our sides with the ballot in their 
hands. It was a fearful experiment. I so regarded it at that time. But 
the conquering power dictated it, and there was no other alternative. It has 
in practice worked better, I confess, than I anticipated, and probably worse 
as a party measure, than the party in power anticipated. 

I am on record in speeches I made in 1868, as saying that in ten or fifteen 
years the Republicans of New England would regret that they gave the col- 
ored man the ballot. The fourteenth amendment provides that if there is 
any race or class of people (I do not quote the exact language) denied the 
elective franchise, they shall not be counted among our representative popu- 
lation. Therefore if we do not give the colored race the vote, none of them, 
would be counted in making up the representative population of the South. 
The colored race counted gives thirty odd votes in Congress and a like num- 
ber in the electoral college. 

In 1876 I was invited by the Democratic executive committee of the Union 
to aid in looking after a fair count in Florida. While there I twitted scima 
of the gentlemen on the Republican side, saying it would not have been 
necessary for them to be there trying to get the vote of the State by unfair 
means, if they had not given the colored man the ballot. " Without it in th& 
count," said I, " you would have had thirty majority and your candidate 
would have been overwhelmingly elected." One of them, using an expletive 
that I will not repeat, said, "Yes, the negro is a failure, and we are sorry 
that we did it." still using expletives. [Laughter and applause.] 

It is, therefore, a source of power to us. They have acted well as an 
uneducated race, given the ballot under such circumstances. They have done- 
probably better than any other race would have done. They are orderly 
now ; and go to the polls and vote by our sides, and many of them for our 
candidates. By counting them we have this great additional strength that 
we would not otherwise have possessed. And whenever any constitutional 
amendment is proposed by the people of the North to take back the ballot 
from the colored man you will find the democracy of the whole South rally- 
ing to the colored man. He gives us power and he shall ever exercise the 
elective franchise ! [Great applause.] He shall no more be a slave ; and he 
shall evermore be a voter. [Applause.] We were apprehensive of danger 
when they were misleading the colored people, but it has worked out to their 
advantage and to ours. It is the interest of the colored man to stand by us ; 
and it is our interest to stand by him. We were raised together. We 
played together in boyhood. We got along finely together ; why should 
either race then abandon the other? Why should he run off after strangers? 



APPENDIX. 779 

It is better for us to act together, deal justly, and all be fellow-citizens together, 
and do everything in our power to build up this great section of ours, to 
develop its resources, and to make it rich and powerful. 

In this connection allow me to say that there is a national obligation which 
arises here. By the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of the col- 
ored man, the whole race were made citizens. ISTow that they are citizens it 
is our interest and duty to make them the best citizens in our powei-. We 
ought to do all we can to make them good citizens. And to do that we must 
educate their children, or help to do it. We have most of the property. The 
taxation falls mostly upon us. The whole country is poor ; I am willing at 
all times to submit to my part of the burden, to raise whatever sum is nec- 
essary to educate the children of the whole State. [Applause.] But I say 
this burden ought not to be put upon the property and the people of the 
South alone. The ISTorthern States required abolition. The interest of the 
Union they said required it. Then if it was the interest of the Union to turn 
loose these four millions of people and absolve them from slavery and make 
them citizens, it is the interest of the whole Union now to help them to be 
good citizens — not only is it the interest but the solemn duty and obligation 
of the Union. Therefore, I say their children ought to be educated, not out 
of our tax or our property alone, but out of the property of the Union. And 
in this connection allow me to say, as I see my friend, Dr. Orr, the State 
school commissioner, present, that he was in a convention of school commis- 
sioners in which most of the Northern States were represented, and they 
agreed to recommend a measure to Congress, and that measure is now pend- 
ing there, to appropi'iate the proceeds of the public lands in future to the 
education o£ the mass of the people. [Applause.] What better use could 
ever be made of it ? None, none ! Take the proceeds of the public lands, 
then, divide them among the States in proportion to the number who are 
illiterate, and let us have it as an educational fund, and we will soon make 
an intelligent people. We will soon educate not only our white children who 
have had no such advantage, but we will educate the colored people, and we 
will advance the cause of prosperity and progress, not only in the South, but 
all over the North ! What could be better ? 

You tell me that it costs money to educate the people. I know it. But I 
tell you that you will never j&nd an enlightened, educated people who do not 
make money. If you want to get rich and powerful, educate the whole mass 
of your people. 

Take Prussia as an instance. Napoleon the First swept over that country 
like a tornado, and scattered everything to ruin. After his fall, Prussia met 
to look into her system and devise means to build up the countiy. The 
wise counsels of the professors and teachers prevailed ; and the King deter- 
mined to educate the whole people. They said to a maa who would not send 
his son to school : "You are responsible for bringing this human being into 
existence. You have no right, sir, to raise him in ignorance and vice, so that 
he will become a pest to society. But you shall send him to school. He 
shall have reasonable opportunities." The law so required and what has 
been the result? That little kingdom that the great conqueror swept over 
almost without resistance, has since risen to be one of the first powers upon 
the earth, and has humbled his successor and driven him from the throne. 
Why was it that the Prussians were more powerful than the French in the 
late struggle? Military men assign many reasons. The universities of 
France are of as high order as those of Germany. But the mass of the peo- 
ple of France are not educated as in Germany. Hence, in that great contest 
the French people did not have the benefit of all the powerful intellect of 
France developed for the struggle. Germany did. Under her system, when 



780 APPENDIX. 

a poor boy is found mentally to possess a glittering diamond, which it is 
only necessary to polish that it may sparkle, he is taken up and educated 
accordingly. If he develops a genius for chemistry, they put him through 
the university and make him a chemist of the highest order. If another is 
found adapted to the military, they give him every advantage to make him 
a grand military commander. If he has capacity for medicine, he is thus 
educated to a high degree for that profession. So, if another is found 
adapted to law, or another to architecture. And so on. And what has been 
the result? When the great struggle began, Prussia had all her brightest 
jewels in intellect polished. She had a man ready for every position, and 
competent for every duty. Whenever you educate the whole American peo- 
ple, all the bright-eyed boys up in these mountains and down in the wire- 
grass who to-day may be wholly unconscious of their powers, with the 
opportunities they have at school, will soon begin to find that they have men- 
tal powers, and you cannot keep them down. And when educated the gov- 
ernment will get the benefit of this power. 

I said soon after the war, and have never taken it back, that if I were 
dictator of Georgia, I would issue a million of dollars in bonds, put them in 
the treasury of Georgia and draw the interest annually for your University 
and its branches. I would make, in addition to the branches we already 
have, two more, one in the eastern and one in the western part of the State. 
I would make the University all that could be required, and then advance the 
public scliools till all these bright jewels could be seen by their sparkling. 
We would then know how to find them. I would put them forward in the 
schools and in the Universities ; and what do you think would be the result 
within a few years V Talk about the expense — seventy thousand dollars per 
annum — what is it ? Why not a mill on the dollar of our taxable property. 
Soon it will be only half a mill. Why not pay it to promote the education 
of our people and produce such a result ? Nothing could be wiser ; nothing 
could redound so to the wealth, prosperity and glory of Georgia. You would 
draw to you first the youth of adjoining States ; then, as you build up higher 
and higher, they would come in all around from Virginia to Texas, and from 
the Oiiio to the Atlantic. You would find youths of every State at your Uni- 
versity spending not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of dollars a year 
in Georgia, and thus advancing the wealth and prosperity of our State. I 
say, then, let us educate the mass of our people, and let us see to it the col- 
ored man has as fair a chance as the white man. That was our compact 
with them at the end of the war, when we established our school system and 
a college for each race. Let it be carried oat in the utmost good faith. 

Well, you may ask what is best for us to do at the present time in our 
national affairs. In my honest opinion the best course to pursue to preserve 
constitutional government, the rights of the States and the liberties of the 
people, and to develop our interest, is to have a change of administration and 
put such a man as General Hancock in power at the head of the government. 
£Applause.] I say it in no partisan sense. I believe that the interest of this 
whole country requires it. And you have this great point to encourage you. 
During the reconstruction period, when military power was dominant here, 
when men were sent down clothed with arbitrary power, holding the desti- 
nies of life and death in their hands, General Hancock was sent with that 
power to New Orleans to exercise it in Louisiana and Texas. What was the 
result ? While there clothed with all the plenitude of military power, with 
th^ right under the law to do just as he pleased in this matter, subject only 
to_ the will of the President, who left everything to him, he refused to per- 
mit the supreme power to be military ; but placed the civil over the military. 
£Applause.] Can you not trust a man in times like these, who could act thus 
in times like those ? I think you may. [Applause.] 



INDEX. 



Abbott & Bro., 483. 
Abolition Slavery, 414. 
Agriculture Dept., 495. 
Akerman, A. T., 54. 
Akin, W., 52, 108, 109, 440. 
Alabama, 168, 172, 173, 184, 

205, 320, 432. 
Ala. & Chat. R. R , 467. 
Alexander, J. R., 52, 65, 66. 
Alexander, P. W., 439. 
Alexander, T. W., 52. 
Allen, A. A., 37. 
Allen, T , 484. 
Amendment, 421, 435, 443, 

444, 462. 
Anderson, J. W., 102. 
Anderson, Major, 203. 
Andrew, J. O., 49. 
Andrews, G., 80, 81,456. 
Anthony, S., 49. 
Area of State, 4. 
Area of C. S., 207. 
Area of U. S., 207. 
Argument in Florida, 507. 
Arkansas, 172, 197,200,206, 

432. 
Arms Seizure, 183. 
Arnold, W., 49. 
Atlanta, 320. 
Avery, W. L,, 470. 
Axson, I., 50. 

Bacon, I. T., 52. 
Bacon, R. I., 52. 
Bailey, D. J., 38, 82, 102. 
Bailey, S. T., 53, 64. 
Bainbridge, C. & C. R. R., 

467. 
Baker, Gen., 235. 
Baker, J. S., 49. 
Ball, J. M., 483. 
Bank Cases, 61. 
Banks, 119-128. 
Banks, H., 483. 
Barnett, S., 498. 
Barney, J. W., 52. 
Barney, T. I., 52. 
Bartlett, G. T., 54. 
Bartow, F. S., 53, 179, 185, 

224. 



Beauregard, Gen., 203, 218, 
222 224. 

Bee, Gen. B., 224. 

Bell, H. P., 186. 

Benning, H, L., 39, 60, 61. 

Berrien, I. W. M., 52. 

Berrien, J. M., 43, 44, 52, 
105. 

Berrien, T. M., 52. 

Bigham, B. H., 54. 

Billups, J. A., 54. 

Black John, 115. 

Blair, F. P., 446. 

Bleckley, L. E., 54. 

Blockade, 237. 

Blodgett, Foster, 481, 483. 

Bonds, State, 251, 465. 

Bonham, Gen., 224. 

Boring, J., 49. 

Boundaries of State, 5. 

Bower, I. E., 52. , 

Boj^nton, Jas. S., 589. 

Bragg, Gen., 211. 

Brantley, W. T., 49. 

Breckenridge, J. C, 92, 198. 

Broadhead, Jas. A., 446. 

Brothers, Georgia, 51,52. 

Brown, Charles M., 99, 569. 

Brown, Elijah A., 99. 

Brown, Franklin P., 100. 

Brown, J. R., 52, 97. 

Brown, Joseph E., 37, 52, 
67, 68, 69, 70, 88, 89, 91, 
138, 220, 257, 259, 325, 
330, 344, 348, 355, 359, 
360, 364, 371, 387, 388, 
392, 397, 398, 400, 403, 
408, 409, 425, 428, 436, 
454, 469, 480, 481, 484, 
488, 501, 507, 521, 524, 
529, 531, 561, 562, 564, 
586, 591. 

Brown, Jos. M., 99. 

Brown, Julius L., 99, 488. 

Brown, Mackey, 95. 

Brown, Sallie, 99. 

Brunswick & Albany R. R., 
468. 

Buchanan, H., 54. 

Buchanan, Pres., 198. 



Buckner, Gen. S. B., 232. 

Bull, 0. A., 37. 

Bull Run, 222. 

Bullock, R. B., 146, 44-3, 
444, 451, 453, 459, 463, 
467, 470, 473, 475, 481, 
485. 

Burch, R. S., 54. 

Butler, D. E., 439. 

Butler, Gen., 217. 

Cabaniss, E. C, 52. 
Cabbages, 313. 
Calhoun Academy, 96. 
Calhoun, J. M., 52. 
Cameron, S., 484. 
Campbell, D. C, 186. 
Campbell, D. G., 42, 59. 
Campbell, J. H., 49. 
Candler, M. A., 315. 
Capers, Gen., 246, 250. 
Cartersville & Van Wert R. 

R,, 468. 
Celia, 315. 
Cemeteries, 17. 
Central R. R., 252, 484. 
Chandler, A., 49, 
Chandler, T., 153. 
Chappell, A. H., 53, 64, 

440. 
Charities, 18, 568. 
Charleston Mercury, 236. 
Charlton, R. M., 53. 
Chastain, E. W., 53. 
Cheatham, Gen. F., 233. 
Cherokee R. R., 468. 
Chinese, 562. 
Chishohn, E. D , 54, 102. 
Choice, Wm. A., 116. 
Christian Sabbath, 160. 
Church, A., 49. 
Churches, 16. 
Cities, 13, 14. 
Civil Service, 562. 
Clark, Gov. John, 34, 38. 
Clark, R. H., 54, 102, 160. 
Clark, W. W., 53. 
Clayton, W. W., 102. 
Cleghorn, Capt., 179. 
Climate of State, 8. 



782 



INDEX. 



Clinch, D. L., 34. 

Cobb, H., 39, 43, 51, 66, 68, 

71, 72, 76, 78, 80, 83, 91, 

105, 131, 135, 185, 187, 

194, 424, 448. 
Cobb T. R. R., 67, 68, 160, 

185. 
Cobb, T. W., 42, 59. 
Cochran, A. E., 39, 102. 
Code of Ga., 159. 
Cole, E. W., 484. 
Colfax, S., 447. 
Colinsworth, J., 49. 
Collard.s, 315. 
Colleges, 19, 20, 21. 
Colley, J., 49. 
Collier, J., 52, 483. 
Colquitt, Alfred H., 497, 

499, 521, 522. 
Colquitt, P., 219. 
Colquitt, W. T., 43, 44, 71, 

73. 
Common Schools, 146. 
Cone, ¥. H., 43, 64. 
Cone, P., 55. 
Confederate Constitution, 

190, 194. 
Confederacy, 181. 
Congress, Prov., 184, 190. 
Conkling, Senator, 525, 

564. 
Conlev,B., 464, 475. 
Conually, Mary V., 99. 
Conscription, 249, 355. 
Constitution of State, 412, 

441, 497. 
Constitutionalist, 86. 
Contracts, 412. 
Controversy, Brown and 

Davis, 261, 355. 
Convention, State, 71, 104, 

411, 434, 439, 443, 449, 

497. 
Cook, G., 484. 
Cook, Phil., 439. 
Cooper, M. A., 34, 55, 82, 

92. 
Correspondence, 320, 355, 

398 
Cotton Exposition, 520. 
Cotton Money, 562. 
Counties of State, 4. 
Cow, 313. 
Cowart, R. J., 53 
Crawford, G. W., 34, 39, 

77, 103, 185. 
Crawford, M. J., 40, 1 94. 
Crawford, N. M, 49 
Crawford, W. H., 40, 42, 

59 95. 
Crittenden, J. C, 198. 



Crook, L W., 54. 
Culpepper, C, 48. 
Gumming, H. H., 52. 
Gumming, William, 52. 
Gumming, J. B., 464, 496. 
Currency Bonds, 473. 
Guyler R. R , 55, 252. 

Dabnev, W. H., 52. 

Dade Coal Co., 488, 489, 
503. 

Daniel, W. C, 186. 

Davis, J., 49, 187,217, 227, 
236, 257, 259, 267, 312, 
318, 355, 359, 360, 365, 
371,388, 392, 436. 

Dawson, A. H. H., 53. 

Dawson, J. E., 49. 

Dawson, W. G., 34, 43, 63. 

Debt, National, 562. 

Debt. War, 412. 

DeGraffenreid, B., 52. 

DeGraffeureid, W. K., 52. 

Delano, J. S., 484. 

Delawai'e. 186, 197. 

DeLvon, L. S., 53. 

Dinsmore, AV. B., 484. 

Dobbins, M. G., 483. 

Dobbins, W. B., 483. 

Dodd, P., 483. 

Donation to State Univer- 
sit}^, 577. 

Dooly, J. M., 42, 59. 

Doughertj^, C., 34, 43, 51. 

Dougherty, R., 51. 

Dougherty, W., 51, 60, 61. 

Douglass, E. L., 52. 

Douglass, M., 52. 

Doyall, L. T., 54. 

Duncan, J. P., 50. 

Duuuegan, J., 55, 

Early, Gen., 320. 
Edam, S. C, 52. 
Education, 146, 562. 
Elam, W. D., 52. 
Elliott, S., 49. 
Elzey, A., 182. 
Embassjrto England, 196. 
Estill, J H., 578. 
Evans, Gen., 234. 
Evans, J. E., 49. 
Examiner, Richmond, 236. 
Ezzard, Wm., 53. 

Fannin, I., 52. 
Featherston, L. H., 53. 
Ferrell, B. C, 53, 102. 
Few, I., 49. 

Fielder, Herbert, 313, 495. 
Fleming, W. B,, 37, 53. 



Florida, 172, 173, 184, 206> 

506. 
Floyd,-Gen. J. B., 218. 
Floyd, J. I., 51. 
Floyd, S., 51. 
Forces, State, 245, 258, 

263. 
Forrest, Gen., 320. 
Forsyth, Jno., 38, 42, 95. 
Fort, Moses, 48. 
Fort Pickens, 202, 210. 
Fort Pulaski, 178. 
Fort Sumter, 185, 202, 210. 
Foster, A. G., 63. 
Foster, I. R., 255, 312, 317, 

418. 
Foster, N G , 40, 51. 
Fouche, S., 55. 
Fourteenth Amendment, 

420, 435, 443, 462. 
Fullarton, A., 398, 399, 403, 

405, 408. 
Furlow, T. M., 109, 439. 

Gardner, J,, 55, 86. 

Gartrell, J. 0., 52. 

Gartrell, L. J., 43, 52, 53, 
102. 

Geologist, State, 158, 496. 

Georgia, 30, 320, 432. 

Georgia Code, 159. 

Georgia Hospital Associa- 
tion, 307. 

Gibson, 0. C, 51. 

Gibson, W., 51. 

Gilmer, G. R , 38. 

Glenn, J. W., 49. 

Glenn, L. J., 53, 439. 

Gold Bonds, 474. 

Gordon, John B,, 443, 497, 
520. 

Gould, W. T., 53. 

Graham, J., 439. 

Grant, Gen., 431, 444, 447, 
453. 

Grant, J. T., 484, 488. 

Grant, W. D., 488. 

Great Seal of State, 486. 

Greeley, Horace, 451. 

Green, H., 54. 

Gresham, J. I., 53, 439. 

Gresham, Rev. Jos., 98. 

Guerry, T. L., 55, 440. 

Hall, G. A., 54. 
Hall, J. I., 466. 
Hall, R. S., 52. 
Hall, Sam.. 52, 54, 186. 
Hammel, A., 59. 
Hammond, A. W., 53. 
Hammond, D. F., 37. 



INDEX. 



783 



Hansen, A. H., 51. 

Hansell, A. J., 51, 54. 

Haralson, H. A., 43,45, 82, 

Hardee, Gen., 232. 

Hardeman, E.. V., 37. 

Hardeman, T., 54, 439. 

Harden, E. J., 531. 

Harper, R. G., 67. 

Harris, I. L., 53. 

Harris, J. L , 54. 

Harris, J. V., 59. 

Harris, J. W., 55. 

Harris, W. A., 54. 

Harris, W. G., 43. 

Harrison, B. K., 53. 

Harrison, G. P., 102, 247,- 
250. 

Harwell, J. M., 483. 

Hawkins, W. A., 54. 

Health of State, 9. 

Henderson, J., 49, 

Henderson, T. J., 495. 

Hester, R., 54. 

Hightower, T. J., 483. 

Hill, B., 52. 

Hill, B. H., 67, 69, 81, 85, 
88, 94, 109, 117, 185, 
424, 436, 439, 440, 448, 
484, 497, 564, 591. 

Hill, E. Y., 34, 51, 102. 

Hill, Joshua, 51, 109, 461, 
485. 

Hillyer, J., 43, 53. 

Hillyer, S. G., 49. 

Holmes, A. T., 49. 

Holt, H., 63. 

Holt, W. S., 484. 
Holt, W. W., 37. 

Hood, Gen., 318, 320. 

Hospital Association, 307. 

Howard, T. C, 55, 102. 

Hoyt, S. B., 483. 
Hudson, C. B.,480, 501. 
Huger, Gen., 217. 

Hughes, D., 439. 
HuU, H., 43. 
Hull, W. H., 53, 66. 
Hutchings, N. L., 52. 

Indians, 562. 
Ingram, P., 54. 
Internal improvements, 

141, 145. 
Investigation, 417, 500. 
Irvine, C. M., 49. 
Irwin, D., 52, 106, 160, 443. 
Iverson, A., sa, 63, 79. 

^> 
Jackson, H. R., 53, 66, 67, 

182, 183, 245, 250, 530, 

560. 



Jackson, Jas., 37, 577. 
Jackson, Jos., 43. 
Jackson, Stonewall, 22'4. 
Jamison, S. Y., 53. 
Janes, T. P., 495. 
Jenkins, C. J., 47, 72, 75, 

76, 77, 78, 411,415,416, 

420, 424, 432, 456, 472, 

473,496, 591. 
Johnson, H. V., 38, 47, 71, 

74, 76,77,78, 80, 83, 119, 

131, 132, 135, 141, 156, 

411, 417, 424, 438, 440, 

590. 
Johnson, J., 63, 410, 413, 

414, 416, 417. 
Johnson.President, 31 1,410, 

416,444. 
Johnson, R. M., 53. 
Johnson, W. B.,484. 
Johnston, Gen. A. S., 232. 
Johnston, Gen. J. E., 218, 

222, 318, 320. 
Jones, C. C. Jr., 497. 
Jones, J., 49. 

Jones, J. A., 51, 54, 56, 102. 
Jones, J. J., 54. 
Jones, S., 51, 57, 61, 63. 
Jordan, C.S., 417. 

Kenan, A. H., 53, 102, 185. 
Kenan, 0. H , 56. 
Kentucky, 168, 172, 197, 

200. 
Key, C, 49. 
Kiddoo, D. H., 39, 
Kimball, H. I,, 467, 473, 

484. 
King, J. P., 55, 484. 
King, T. B., 53. 
King, Wm., 310. 
Ivuight, N. B., 54. 
Know Nothings, 79, 81,456. 
Koliock, H., 49. 

Lamar, G. B., 253. 
Lamar, H. G., 53, 86. 
Lamar, L. Q. C., 67, 68. 
Lamar, Senator, 564. 
Lane, C. W., 50. 
Latham, T. A., 56, 57. 
Law, J., 53. 
Law, W., 53. 
Lawton, A. E.,53, 179, 250, 

528, 561. 
Lawton, W. J., 102. 
Lease, State Road, 480, 501. 
Lee, Gen. R. E., 218, 530. 
Leesburg battle, 234. 
Legislature, 459. 
Lester, G. N., 52. 



Lester, P., 52. 
Letcher, Gov., 220. 
Letters, 319, 325, 345, 348, 

355, 359, 360, 365, 371, 

388, 392, 398, 400, 403, 

405, 447, .502, 570, 578. 
Leverett, W., 96. 
Lewis, D. W., 53. 
Lewis, Dr. J. W., 98, 132, 

141. 
Lewis, M. W., 54. 
Leyden, A., 483. 
Lincoln, Pres., 217, 320, 

410,445. 
Liquor, 238. 
Little, Dr. Geo., 496. 
Lloyd, T. E., 53. 
Lochrane, 0. A., 54, 417. 
Longstreet, A. B., 49. 
Long-street, Gen. J., 224. 
Losses, war, 308. 
Louisiana, 172, 173, 186, 

206. 
Love, P. E., 37, 102. 
Lovell, J. M.., 53, 
Lumpkin, J. H., 37, 40, 73, 

86, 87. 
Lumpkin, W., 38, 41. 
Lyon, Gen., 234. 
Lyon, J., 52. 
Lvon, J. R., 54. 
Lyon, R. P., 52. 

Mabry, C. W., 54. 

Macon & Brunswick R. R., 

472. 
Macon & Western R. R., 

484. 
Magruder, Gen. J. B.,217. 
Mahone, Senator, 562, 564. 
Malory, C. D., 49. 
Manassas, 226. 
Mann,' A. T., 49. 
Manufactories, 15. 
Maryland, 172, 186, 197, 

200, 320. 
Mason & Slidell, 227. 
May, B., 484. 
McAllister, M. H., 34, 76. 
McCane, R. W., 54. 
McClellan, Gen., 217, 219, 

224. 
McCuUoch, Gen. B., 234. 
McDonald, C. J., 34, 37, 39, 

71, 72, 73,78, 79, 81,105. 
McDougald, A., 51, 63, 
McDougald, D., 51, 63. 
McDowdl, Gen., 217. 
Mcintosh, L. H., 255. 
Mclntyre, A. T., 54. 
McKay H. S., 53, 487. 



784 



INDEX. 



McKinley.C. G., 51. 

McKinley, E. D., 51. 

McKinley, W., 51. 

McLester, W. W.,439. 

McMillan, G., 466. 

McMillan, R., 53. 

McNaught, Wm., 483. 

Meade, Gen., 433, 444. 

Means, A , 49. 

Mell, P. H., 49. 

Mercer, J., 59. 

Mercer, G. A., 439. 

Mercury, Charleston, 236. 

Meriwether, J. A., 43, 47. 

Merrell, H. F., 51. 

Merrell, W. W., 51. 

Message, 112, 115,117,119, 
121, 123, 128, 135, 136, 
138, 143, 147, 152, 158, 
161, 164, 168, 245, 249, 
250, 253, 255, 263, 265, 
268, 271, 306, 309, 416, 
421, 475. 

Mexican pension speech, 
525. 

Military administration, 
162 

Milledge, J., 53. 

Milledgeville, 312. 

Miller, A. J., 43, 46, 47, 102. 

Miller, Dr. H. V. M., 54, 81, 
461, 577. 

Milner, J., 53. 

Minerals, 10. 

Mississippi, 168, 172, 173, 
184, 186, 206,320,432. 

Missouri, 172, 197, 200, 206. 

MitcheU, Wm. M, 577. 

Mobley, J. M., 54. 

Moore, A. B., 185. 

Morgan, H., 52. 

Morgan, J. B., 54. 

Morgan, Gov., 183. 

Morgan, Gen. J. H., 320. 

Mormons, 562. 

Morrill, W. C, 484, 488. 

Morris, T., 54. 

Mosely, Wm., 49. 

Murphy, C., 52, 102. 

Myers, E. H., 49. 

Nelson, Gen., 234. 

Netherlaud, G. M., 480, 501. 

Neufville, E., 49. 

Newspapers, 22. 

NicoU, J. C., 36. 

Nisbet, E. A., 52, 61, 62,63, 

64, 108, 109, 174, 185. 
Nisbet, J. A., 52. 
North Carolina, 172, 186, 

197, 200, 206, 320, 432. 



North Eastern R. R., 500. 
Norwood, Thos. M., 527. 
Nun'ually, A. D., 480, 482, 

501. 
Nutting, C. A., 484. 

Oliver, B., 54. 
Ordinance for contracts, 

412. 
Ordinance war debt, 412. 
Ordinance of Secession, 

174,411. 
Ormond, J., 483. 
Orr, J. L., 185. 
Overby, B. H., 53, 80. 
Owens, G. S., 52. 
Owens, J. W., 52. 

Pardon power, 113. 
Parks, W. J., 49. 
Parole, 311. 
Parties in State, 33. 
Patterson, Gen., 222. 
Peace, 195, 198. 
Peeples, C, 53. 
Pennsylvania, 320. 
Perkins, W. C, 52. 
Peters, R., 484. 
Pettus.J. Q., 186. 
Phillips, CD., 52. 
Phillips, G. D., 55. 
Phillips, Wm.,52, 182, 245, 

246. 
Pickens, F. W., 185. 
Pierce, G. F., 59, 480,_501. 
Pierce, L., 49. 
Pillow, Gen. G. J., 232. 
Pinchard, J. S., 53. 
Plant, H. B , 484. 
Poe, W., 53. 
Polk, Gen. L., 233. 
Poor, The, 242. 
Pope, A., 54 
Pope, Gen. J., 432, 444. 
Population of State, 4,205. 
Pottle, E. H., 52, 439. 
Powers, A. P., 38. 
Price, Gen. S., 233. 
Pringle, J. A., 54. 
Printup, D. S., 54, 117. 
Productions of State, 9. 
Public men of Georgia,^31. 
Pulaski, Fort, 178. 
Purse, T., 102. 

Railroads, 11, 12, 141, 145. 
Railroad Commissioners, 

498. 
Ramsay, J. N., 43, 54, 102, 

219. 
Ray, J., 56, 59. 



Recognition, 196. 
Reconstruction, 410, 420, 

428, 
Reese, Aug., 52, 443. 
Reese, Wm. M., 52, 480, 

501. 
Renneau, R., 49. 
Report Bond Committee,. 

470. 
Resolution, 24, 95, 440, 450, 

483. 
Retrenchment, 161. 
Review of Parties, 455. 
Rice, G. D., 52. 
Rice, J. H., 52, 
Rice, Sally, 95. 
Richardson, C. B., 439. 
Richmond Examiner, 236. 
Rising Fawn Iron Co., 489. 
Rivers of State, 6. 
Rockwell, W. S., 53. 
Roll of Troops, 257. 
Rosecrans, Gen., 217, 219. 
Ruger, Gen., 432. 
Rutherford, J., 53. 

Sabbath, Christian, 160, 

239 
Saffold, T. P., 52, 417. 
Sanders, B. M., 49. 
Sanford, J. W. A., 186. 
Salt, 241. 

Sav.,Fla. & W. R. R., 499. 
Schley, G., 52. 
Schley, J.. 52. 
Schley, W., 40, 52. 
Schools, 19, 20. 
Schools, Common, 146. 
Scott, Duulap, 480. 
Scott, Gen., 211, 217. 
Scott, T. A., 484. 
Screven, Capt., 179. 
Scrutchins, T., 483. 
Seago, A. K., 483. 
Secession, 170, 174, 177, 

199,411,424. 
Seddon, Jas. A., 319,325, 

330, 345-348. 
Seizure Arms, 183. 
Semmes, P. J., 180, 245, 

246. 
Senator J. E, Brown, 524. 
Seward, J. L., 41, 45. 
Seward, W. H., 413. 
Shackelford, A. D., 102. 
Sherman, Gen., 310, 318, 

320. 
Shorter, E. S., 42. 
Shorter, J. G., 185. 
Silver Question, 562. 
Simmons, J. P , 54. 



INDEX. 



785 



Simmons, Thomas J., 466. 
Simms, R., 53. 
Slavery, 71, 230, 414. 
Smith, Gen. G. W., 318. 
Smith, J. M., 54. 
Smith, Gen. Kirby, 223,320. 
Smith, L B., 54. 
Smith, Gov., 463, 464, 495, 

498. 
Societies, 22, 23. 
Soil of State, 9. 
South Carolina, 168, 172, 

184, 185, 186, 200, 206, 
320, 432. 

South Ga. & Fla. E. R., 472, 

Southern R. R. and Steam- 
ship Association, 490. 

Southwestern R. R., 484. 

Spaulding, R., 102. 

Spear, A. M., 54. 

Spear, E., 50, 560. 

Speeches, 525, 529, 560, 
562. 

Speer, Emory, 560. 

Spurlock, J. M., 102. 

Stafford, S. S., 54. 

Stark, J. H., 37. 

Starnes, E., 53. 

State Bonds, 250. 

State Convention, 71. 

State Forces, 245, 256. 

State Geologist, 158. 

State Road, 88. 

State University, 152, 156, 
577, 586. 

Steel, J. D., 102. 

Stell, J. D., 55 

Stephens, A. H., 39, 47, 51, 
64, 71,80, 82, 83,92, 100, 

185, 236, 417 424, 450, 
452, 484, 497, 589. 

Stephens,L.,51, 67, 68,102, 

449, 452. 
Stewart, J. A., 439. 
Stocks, T., 55. 
Stone, Gen., 234. 
Sturgis, J., 63. 
Styles, W. H., 38, 86, 87. 
Sumter, Fort, 185. 
Supplement, 495. 
Supreme Court, 61, 62. 

Talmage, S. K., 49. 
Tanner, W. J., 483. 
Tariff, 562, 565. 
Tatnall, Com., 184. 
50 



Taylor, Gen. Dick,312,316. 
Tax, War, 263. 
Temperance, 80. 
Tennessee, 168, 172, 186, 

197, 200, 206, 248, 320. 
Terry, Gen , 433, 462. 
Texas, 168, 172, 173, 186, 

432. 
Thomas, G. E., 63. 
Thomas, T. W., 37, 53. 
Thompson, Gen. Jeff., 233. 
Thornton, B. E , 54. 
Thornton, V., 49. 
Thoward, S. P., 54. 
Tidwell, M. M., 54. 
Tilden-Hayes Election,5 . 
Timber of State, 10 
Toombs, R., 39,57, 71, 80, 

82, 105, 184, 229, 316, 

318, 424, 448, 587, 591. 
Towns, 14. 
Towns, G. W., 34, 38, 43, 

77, 102, 103, 104, 131. 
Tracy, E. D., 51, 52. 
Tracy, P., 51, 52. 
Trammell, L. N., 464, 498. 
Transfer Troops, 181,248, 

249. 
Treasury Notes, 253. 
Trippe, R. P., 40, 53, 102. 
Trippe, T. H., 37. 
Troops, 208, 256. 
Troup, G. M., 34, 38, 75. 
Tucker, H. H., 49. 
Tucker, J. A., 53. 
Turner, A., 49. 
Tyler, Jno , 198. 

Underwood, J. W. H., 53, 

65. 
Underwood, W. H , 56, 59. 
Universitv of Georgia, 152, 

156, 577, 569. 

Vason, D. H., 52. 

Vason, W. J., 186. 

Veto Power, 111, 115, 117, 

121, 128. 
Virginia, 168, 172, 197, 200, 

217, 320, 432. 
Vote on Secession, 174,177. 
Vote for U. S. Senator, 561. 

Waddell, I., 49. 
Waitzfelder & Co., 419, 484. 
Walker, D. A., 465. 



Walker Iron & Coal Co., 

503. 
Walker, Gen. W. H. T., 

245, 250. 
Wallace, Campbell, 498, 
Wallace, J. R.,483. 
Wallace, W. S , 54. 
Walters, W. T., 484. 
War Contracts, 412. 
War Debt, 412. 
War Losses, 308. 
War Tax, 263. 
Ward, J. E., 53. 
Warner, H., 39, 52, 81, 86, 

87,487, 591. 
Warner, J C, 489. 
Warner, O., 52, 54. 
Warren, Eli, 48, 51. 
Warren, Lott, 48,51. 
Water Power of State, 7. 
Wayne, Gen., 246, 3J4, 316. 
Wayne, J. M., 36. 
Wellborn, M. J., 63. 
West Virginia, 206. 
Western Atlantic R. R., 

88, 103, 130, 473, 480, 

490, 501, 503. 
Whitaker, J. I., 255, 418. 
White, A. J., 483. 
White, C, 59. 
White, T. W., 186. 
Whittle, L. N., 588. 
Williams, C J., 180. 
Williams, H., 53. 
Williams, Gen J. S., 234. 
Willingham, C. H. C, 439. 
Wilson, Gen, 311. 
Wilson, J. S., 49. 
Wingfield, J., 52. 
Wofford, W. B., 55, 102. 
Wofford, W. T., 54 
Worrell, B. S., 51. 
Worrell, E. H., 38, 51, 102. 
Worrell, J., 51. 
Wright, A, 49. 
Wright, Ambrose R., 54. 
Wright, Augustus R., 53, 

65, 185, 186, 194. 
Wright, G. J., 51. 
Wright, W. F., 51. 
Wyley, B. F., 483. 

Yancey, W. L., 196. 

Zollicoffer, Gen., 232. 
Zouave, 214. 




















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1^ 




